VIENNA, September 20. /TASS/. Russia will increase the number of nuclear power units at most of its operational nuclear power plants, Alexey Likhachev, head of the Russian nuclear corporation Rosatom told reporters on Monday. He is heading the Russian delegation at the 65th IAEA General Conference in Vienna, Austria.
"As for most of the existing plants, we will decide on expansion of the existing units," he said.
"We will be gradually decommissioning Soviet units built in the 1970s. They will be replaced by about 15 units by 2035. Our task is to build them on the existing sites, to expand the existing plants with new units. All of them will be generations 3+, with a capacity of 1,200 MW," Likhachev said.
According to him, at the present time this entire set of tasks is being discussed at the government level.
"In the government we are working on a plan for the placement of nuclear power plants until 2035. As soon as the government decision is made, it will be immediately made public," the general director of Rosatom said.
However, "in addition to the quantitative solution of problems in nuclear power generation, innovative solutions are needed," he noted.
In particular, this concerns low-power nuclear power plants.
"I would like to clarify one thing - it concerns low-power reactors. A relevant decision has been made, and we switched to its practical implementation, namely the construction of a flotilla of small nuclear power plants based on RITM reactors that will be used in the development of the Baimskoye ore deposit, as well as the land-based version of the RITM-200 for the Kyuchus gold deposit in Yakutia. That means that we have already started implementing low-capacity projects both in Chukotka and Yakutia," he added.