Representatives from ministries and departments in Yakutia and stat nuclear corporation Rosatom discussed the plans during an online seminar on SMRs.
They said a field survey has been completed at a potential site in the settlement of Ust-Kuyga. By the end of 2020 Rusatom Overseas plans to draw up a declaration of intent to invest in the project for authorities in Yakutia to consider.
The project will be based on Rosatom’s RITM reactor technology. It was the subject of a declaration of intent signed by Yakutia and Rosatom in September 2019.
The latest RITM plant, the RITM-200, is an advanced pressurised water reactor unit which is already operational on new-generation icebreakers.
In May Rosatom said Russia had developed an in-depth conceptual design for its first land-based SMR, based on the RITM-200, with commercial operation scheduled for 2027.
At the time Rosatom said Russia was considering three areas for the first SMR facility. They are the Suroyam iron ore deposit near Chelyabinsk in southwest Russia, the Baim minerals deposit in Chukotka, in Russia’s far east, and several sites in Yakutia, eastern Russia.
Each facility would cover an area of about six hectares and have two RITM-200 units with an electrical capacity of 50 MW each (165 MW thermal). The design life of the plant is 60 years with a refuelling cycle six to seven years.
“The construction period is three to four years and this technology would be flexible and tailor-made, with options to use it for electricity generation, cogeneration, desalination and hydrogen production,” Rosatom said.
Each facility could be expanded by building additional main building and cooling tower with all auxiliary buildings being shared.
