All news

Russia's nuclear corporation chief: Russian NPPs twice as reliable as US, European ones

The share of the nuclear power sector in Russia’s electric power engineering has risen from 15% to over 17%
Russian President vladimir Putin and Rosatom chief Sergey Kiriyenko Alexey Nikolsky/TASS
Russian President vladimir Putin and Rosatom chief Sergey Kiriyenko
© Alexey Nikolsky/TASS

MOSCOW, May 5. /TASS/. The Russian civilian nuclear power industry is increasing power generation and cutting costs while Russian nuclear power plants are far more reliable than foreign NPPs, Rosatom Head Sergey Kiriyenko said on Tuesday.

The head of Russia’s civilian nuclear power corporation said at a meeting with President Vladimir Putin that Rosatom had achieved all its targets in 2014.

"The fulfillment of the long-term development program, which was approved, is somewhere at the level of 116% of the planned figure," Kiriyenko said, adding the domestic civilian nuclear power industry had generated a record 182 billion kW/hr last year.

The share of the nuclear power sector in Russia’s electric power engineering has risen from 15% to over 17%, the Rosatom head added.

The Rosatom chief said larger power generation had not affected the reliability of nuclear power plants.

"This year we have also registered no deviation that would be at least somehow significant. That is, this is what is called the zero level under the international scale," Kiriyenko said.

"The reliability indicators of Russian nuclear power plants are about twice as good as the indicators of our colleagues both in Europe and the United States," the Rosatom head said.

At the same time, Rosatom has set the task of "trying to cut costs at least by 10% annually," Kiriyenko said.

In particular, Rosatom has been able to reduce "the cost price per kilogram of uranium or per kilogram of fuel, which we produce," he said.

The Rosatom head said the nuclear power firm had been able to save 34 billion rubles ($654 million) last year through a transparent purchase system.

"Overall, we have been able to save 250 billion rubles ($4.8 billion) since the system was introduced," the Rosatom head said.

Rosatom’s order book grows by $34 bln to $101 bln in 2014

The portfolio of Rosatom’s foreign contracts increased by $34 billion to $101.4 billion last year, Kiriyenko said.

"We finished the year with $101.4 billion in the book of foreign orders, i.e. we grew by $34 billion," the Rosatom head said.

The goal to increase the portfolio of orders proved to be an uneasy task "amid the attempts of restrictions and political pressure," Kiriyenko said.

Rosatom’s order book in 2013 amounted to $72 billion and the contracts signed that year are more than $5 billion fulfilled, he added.

Kiriyenko noted Rosatom’s successful work for the construction of the Bushehr NPP in Iran, the NPP in Hungary and the Kudankulam nuclear power plant in India.

Russia has also signed an inter-governmental agreement with Jordan, Kiriyenko said.

"Our order book has grown quite noticeably, which surely ensures steady capacity utilization of enterprises both in the nuclear power industry and associated sectors," the Rosatom head said.

Foreign specialist training remains an important area of Rosatom’s work, he said, adding Jordan had requested the Russian nuclear power firm to double the number of Jordanian specialists from this year to undergo training.

"The same also refers to Vietnam and Turkey. That is why, everything is going well," the Rosatom head said.