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The construction and installation work at unit-1 of Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) has been completed, Russia’s state-owned Rosatom said in a statement Wednesday.
The personnel of the NPP has started a large-scale test program for physical start-up, said the statement.
The first stage of operation commenced for bringing the reactor plant to the rated parameters on December 18, it said.
During this stage, the operability of equipment and mechanisms will be tested. The reactor coolant pumps (RPC) will be launched and tested for the first time. The reactor plant will be tested at the rated parameters without nuclear fuel. Once the compliance of the equipment with all the design parameters are confirmed the Unit will be ready for the start-up operations, said the statement.
“We have entered the final preparation of Rooppur NPP Unit- 1 for the physical start-up. This is an important stage, under which we must carry out a large scope of works and tests to prove the operability of the process systems in all the operating modes”, said Andrey Petrov, First Deputy Director General for Nuclear Energy of Rosatom, and President of ASE.
“We fulfill all our obligations and guarantee the reliability and safety of our technologies. The first nuclear power plant in Bangladesh will support the country’s economy and will work for the benefit of its future generations,” he said.
Commissioning of Rooppur NPP will ensure supply of environmentally friendly and safe energy providing for around 10 per cent of the total energy consumption in Bangladesh, the Rosatom statement said.
But the commissioning of the Rooppur NPP will be delayed as the construction work of the required electricity transmission line to evacuate electricity from the RNPP is not yet completed, a senior official of Bangladesh’s state-run Power Grid Company Bangladesh (PGCB) told the FE.
Although the construction and installation work at unit-1 of Rooppur NPP have been completed the commissioning of the RNPP will not be possible without the transmission line, he said.
Building around 16 kilometres (km) of transmission lines over two major rivers – 9.0 km over the Jamuna river and 7.0 km over the Padma river –might be completed within next several months, he said.
Maintaining frequency in the power transmission system from the RNPP project will be the biggest challenge after the completion of the river crossing power transmission lines, he said.
Fuel loading in RNPP unit-1 will start after completion of the transmission line, the official added.
PGCB is the only company in Bangladesh to construct power transmission lines.
The PGCB official said that the construction work of the transmission line was halted during mid-July when the mighty river saw huge flow of water.
After mid-July the construction work ceased again due to the mass uprising in Bangladesh that toppled the previous Awami League government on August 5, he said.
Rooppur NPP equipped with two Russian VVER-1200 reactors having a total capacity of 2400 MW is being constructed at Ishwardiupazilal of Pabna district in accordance with General Contract signed on December 25, 2015. The VVER-1200 reactors belong to evolutionary Generation III+ design which fully complies with all the international safety requirements.
Engineering Division of Rosatom is the General Designer and General Contractor of the Rooppur project.