11 Jul (NucNet): Engineering company Atomenergoproject has won the turnkey contract to be general contractor for the completion of Russia’s Kalinin-4 nuclear power plant in the west of the country, the Nuclear Society of Russia (NSR) has said.
The contract, with Russia’s Federal Atomic Energy Agency (Rosatom), will be formally signed by the Nizhny Novgorod Scientific, Research, Design & Development Institute, which is part of Atomenergoproject.
The contract includes commissioning work until the plant is handed over to the owner for commercial operation.
Construction of Kalinin-4, a 950-megawatt (MW) VVER-1000 unit, began in 1986 but was abandoned when the unit was less than 30 percent complete. The unit is still formally declared as being under construction.
In June 2006, Russian president Vladimir Putin formally approved a nuclear energy development programme that included 18 billion rubles (RUB) (700 million US dollars, 510 million euros) in the 2007 federal budget for the completion of three units – Kalinin, and units at Beloyarsky and Volgodonsk.
Russia has begun a federal programme of nuclear power plant construction that calls for 10 new units with a total capacity of more than 11,000 MW to be commissioned by 2015, with another 10 in various stages of construction. The programme aims to increase nuclear’s share of electricity generated in the country from 15.6 percent to 18.6 percent over the next eight years.
Last month, Atomenergoproject began work on the construction of the second phase of the Novovoronezh nuclear power plant in southwest Russia, signing a RUB 130 billion contract for the project.
There are three reactor units in commercial operation at Kalinin. Kalinin-3 was the most recent begin commercial operation, on 8 November 2005.
