Vyacheslav Belyayev, chief designer of KLT-40S project of Afrikantov OKBM

– Floating NPPs are in high demand in places lacking energy

On Feb 24 2009 Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation and the Government of Yakutia signed an agreement for implementing investment projects to build four floating nuclear power plants for supplying the northern regions of the republic with heat and electricity. After the signing Director General of Rosatom Sergey Kiriyenko said that Russia was going to build 10 floating NPPs in the Far North region. The reactor of the world’s first floating NPP is being designed, produced and supplied by Afrikantov OKBM in the framework of its contract with Energoatom Concern.

Floating nuclear power plants are in high demand in places where there is not enough energy as well as in areas where it is hard or impossible to supply energy: Far North, Far East. Floating NPPs are the best solution for those regions. The second indisputable advantage of floating NPPs is that they are ecologically friendly: you just bring them to a place, station them and take them back after operation leaving no trances, nothing but a green-field.  Besides, floating NPPs are independent. They need not onshore infrastructure.

This is an economically efficient project: it is very expensive to supply energy to such regions as they have no centralized system unlike European Russia.

As regards the export capacities of floating NPPs, the potential demand for them is very high. For the moment, everybody is waiting for the first plant. The plants can be used not only for production of energy but also for desalination of sea water.

For the moment the reactor and turbine of the first floating plant are 80% ready. This year the plant will be ready. So, we can be sure that it was Russia who will produce the world’s first floating nuclear power plant.