State news agency Tass said the funding will reimburse the cost of loans taken for the first stages of construction and will be made available in 2022.
The agency said construction of the 490-km-long power line from Bilibino northeast to the port town of Pevek began in December 2020, with the first circuit planned to be completed by the end of 2023.
The Akademik Lomonosov, a 21,000-tonne vessel with two KLT-40S reactor units of 35 MW electric capacity each, began commercial operation at Pevek in May 2020.
Operator Rosenergoatom said at the time the facility would be used to replace capacity lost when the three-unit Bilibino nuclear station, the smallest and the northernmost operating such facility in the world, is permanently shut down at the beginning of the next decade.
In December 2019, Akademik Lomonosov was connected to the grid of the Chaun-Bilibin mining complex. The plant is expected to become the basis of the energy infrastructure of the Chaun-Bilibino industrial hub, which has rich reserves of gold, silver, copper and other non-ferrous metals.
According to Rosenergoatom, the Bilibino nuclear station generates 80% of the electricity produced by the closed-loop Chaun-Bilibino energy system, and acts as Bilibino’s only source of heat supply.
