2 Jul (NucNet): Russia’s nuclear regulator Rostechnadzor has approved the life extension of unit 1 of the Kalinin nuclear power station and has issued a new 10-year licence for the unit, Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom has said.
This is the first time a modernisation and lifetime extension of a nuclear unit has been carried out in Russia and will see the Russian-designed VVER unit continue commercial operation until at least 2025, Rosatom said.
The life extension project began in December 2009 and included modernisation and maintenance operations over five years.
The last set of repairs was carried out during an outage in early 2014, which completed the process for the issuing of a licence for extended operation until 2025.
Rosatom is now working on extending the lifetime of Kalinin-2, a project which is expected to be completed in 2016.
Kalinin nuclear power station has four commercially operational pressurised water reactors with a power capacity of 950 megawatts each. It is in the Tver region, about 170 kilometres northwest of Moscow.
Kalinin-1 and -2 began commercial operation in 1985 and 1987 and Kalinin-3 and -4 began commercial operation in 2005 and 2012.
