Greater efficiency in Russian nuclear power plant maintenance outages saved nearly 180 days last year and enabled 2.9 terawatt hours more electricity to be produced than would otherwise have been possible, Rosenergoatom said yesterday. This amount of electricity is enough to meet the energy demand of, for example, the Smolensk or Tver regions for six months, the company said.

Optimisation of maintenance outages at Russia’s nuclear power units during 2019 amounted to 179.5 days, fewer than the target set by the Federal Antimonopoly Service and 60.5 days fewer than the company’s target level.

The main contributors to the achievement were Kursk units 1 and 2 and Leningrad unit 4 thanks to improvements in “managing the characteristics” of RBMK reactors, Rosenergoatom said.

In total last year, there were 37 maintenance outages at 32 power units. This year, 41 maintenance outages are planned, with a total duration of 2484 days (at the target level). To achieve this, a schedule has been developed and agreed with the national grid operator, the company said.