License to continue building Belarusian nuclear station by end of August

The license for building the first power-generating unit of the Belarusian nuclear power plant may be issued by the end of August. The information was released by Olga Lugovskaya, Head of the Nuclear and Radiation Safety Department of the Belarusian Emergencies Ministry, during the online conference hosted by the BelTA website on 14 August when asked whether the previously published plans to issue the license by 15 August were feasible.

“It is understandable that operations are planned in Belarus, it is a good manner, it is the right thing to do. So 15 August is a date, which is close to reality. At present procedures involved in the first stage of the expert evaluation and the assessment of the potential licensee’s compliance with license requirements are being finished. I think the timeline will be shifted because today is 14 August and tomorrow will be 15 August. I am not ready to specify a date, however, intensive work is in progress. I believe that the decision will be made soon, quite probably by the end of August,” assumed Olga Lugovskaya. The official said that specialists of the Nuclear and Radiation Safety Department intend to visit the Ostrovets site the next week and discuss topical matters with the construction directorate. She explained that as a regulating body the Nuclear and Radiation Safety Department takes part in sessions of the nuclear power plant construction staff, makes remarks and submits proposals.

Olga Lugovskaya stated that the procedure for issuing a license for operations relating to such an important, complicated, unique facility is complex, complicated, science and labor-intensive. In line with the law (decree No. 450 stipulates and regulates such procedures) the evaluation of safety as specified by the documents a potential licensee submits can take up to one year. “In a sense the procedure involves two steps,” specified the official. She noted that the expert evaluation was very thorough. Services of a licensed expert organization have been retained for this work. “In order to get the relevant license, a research institution has to prove it is ready to render these services. For instance, the institution has to have a certain number of experts with certain and very high qualifications,” said the specialist. The United Energy and Nuclear Research Institute Sosny is the agency invited to evaluate the safety of the construction of the Belarusian nuclear power plant.

The evaluation of compliance of the potential licensee with legislation requirements is another step (the procedures are simultaneous). “The documents submitted to get the license represent large volumes, thousands of pages. Experts have to work hard to study them, clearly decide, get proof that the suggested technologies are safe and should be used,” said the Head of the Nuclear and Radiation Safety Department of the Belarusian Emergencies Ministry. This procedure began in Belarus at the end of February 2013.

The official pointed out that the Belarusian side had established rather good rapport with the potential licensee, who is doing its best to provide all the papers needed. “It has been specified that if experts have any questions, they may request additional papers such as scientific reports of design organizations. The work is in motion and the construction directorate together with its general contractor – Russian specialists – is providing all these papers on time,” said Olga Lugovskaya. “Moreover, we can work directly with Russian experts, who designed the technical and architectural aspects”. For instance, the specialists have visited Belarus to give detailed explanations, comments, provide correcting notes if necessary in order to dispel any and all doubts of Belarusian experts.

The Belarusian nuclear station’s design stems from the AES-2006 design developed by the Saint Petersburg-based institute Atomenergoproject. The AES-2006 design is now used to build the second Leningrad nuclear power plant and the Baltic nuclear power plant. The power plant will feature two power-generating units with the total capacity of up to 2,400MW. The first power-generating unit is scheduled to go online in 2018.