The advanced Unit 1 with Gen III+ VVER-1200 of the Belarusian NPP (General Designer and Contractor: Rosatom Engineering) for the first time reached the nominal capacity level at 19:57 on 12 January.

“Start of the operation at 100% capacity is the main event of the pilot operation stage at any nuclear power unit”, noted Vitaly Polyanin, Vice President and Project Manager for the Belarusian NPP Construction, JSC EC ASE. Once the compliance of the actual operation parameters of the systems and equipment with the design requirements is verified, the unit will start commercial operation”.

The start-up program began at Unit 1 with Gen III+ VVER-1200 of the Belarussian NPP on 7 August 2020 when the first fuel assemblies with fresh nuclear fuel were loaded into the reactor core. Later, on 11 October, the Unit reactor reached first criticality (which is less than 1% of the design capacity level). On 3 November, the unit was connected to the power system of the Republic of Belarus and started pilot operation on 22 December.

The Belarusian NPP with two VVER-1200 with 2400MW total capacity is being constructed in Astravyets (the Republic of Belarus). The first Belarusian NPP is based on the Gen III+ Russian design that fully complies with the international safety standards and recommendations of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Unit 1 of the Belarussian NPP is the first Russian-design Gen III+ unit constructed abroad. At present, there are three power units of the kind that are successfully operated in Russia: two units are at the Novovoronezh NPP and one unit is at the Leningrad NPP. On 3 January 2021, the fourth Russian-design Gen III+ unit, which is unit 6 of the Leningrad NPP, reached 100% capacity.