Nuclear industry is ready to kick-start production of floating nuclear heat and power plants (FNHPP) in a number of modifications with reactors of 10 to 300 MW. This was said by Sergey Kirienko, Director General of the State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom, during a ceremony to launch Akademik Lomonosov, the world’s first floating power unit (FPU), at the Baltyskiy shipyard, St. Petersburg, June 30. He also said he expected small nuclear power plants that would not rely on well-developed grid facilities to take over up to 20% of the NPP construction market.

The ceremony to put afloat the FPU for the world’s first floating nuclear heat and power plant under construction by Rosenergoatom, was attended by Ilya Klebanov, Plenipotentiary Representative of the RF President in the North-West Federal District, Valentina Matvienko, Governor of St. Petersburg, Roman Kopin, Governor of the Chukotka Autonomous District, Sergey Obozov, Director General of Rosenergoatom, and others.

The floating power unit of design 20870 will have a godmother, as is a tradition with ships, with St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matvienko having undertaken the mission. Rosatom, she noted with satisfaction, had been working actively with nuclear engineering enterprises in St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region with a 76.2 billion roubles worth of equipment, covering 65% of all nuclear industry orders, to be manufactured by them in 2010 alone.

A bottle of champagne smashed by Valentina Matvienko against the hull of the FPU, a 140 m by 30 m flush-decked non-powered vessel with a displacement of 21 000 tonnes, symbolized a start in the FPU’s long and successful life journey. The prospects look really good for the FNHPP as it accomplishes the nuclear industry’s key objective under this project, which is creation of a reference plant to become an innovative product for international market. There are many countries, including in the developing world, showing interest in the FNHPP. Adding a desalination capability to an energy system, the FNHPP promises an additional improvement in the project’s economics when deployed in localities with scarce fresh water supplies. To sell abroad, the plant needs to have a going prototype built in Russia.

The two key near-term events, Sergey Kirienko noted, were the completion of the installation work on the FPU next year and the launch of a parallel project to build an onshore infrastructure and waterworks on the Kamchatka Peninsula. By 2012, in a span of net 22 months, nuclear workers plan to fuel the reactors of the FNHPP and tow it to the stationing area.

The floating power unit (FPU) is a flush-decked non-powered vessel with two KLT-40S icebreaker-type reactor facilities. Each of the reactors has an installed capacity of 35 MW and a heat power of 140 Gcal. The expected plant life is 38 years with three 12-year cycles and outages for repair in between. The FNHPP offers an economic alternative to onshore power plants in remote areas with costly power transmission and fossil fuel deliveries. The manufacturer of the FPU reactor parts is the Afrikantov Design Bureau in Nizhny Novgorod. The supplier of the steam turbine plants is the Kaluga Turbine Works. The FPU engineering and detail design developer is the Aisberg Central Design Bureau, St. Petersburg, and the FNHPP General Designer is Atomenergo Joint-Stock Company, St. Petersburg.