MOSCOW, November 24. /TASS/. The IAEA's Operational Safety Review Team (OSART) has completed the world's first mission to the fast neutron reactor unit of Russia's Beloyarsk NPP.
According to the press service of the Rosatom state corporation, the IAEA experts found the facility close to ideal.
The world's first OSART mission to a fast neutron reactor was conducted by experts from Britain, France, Iran, Armenia, Belarus, Slovakia and China. The Russian government had requested the visit. On the Russian side, more than 300 specialists representing the Beloyarsk NPP, Rosenergoatom (Rosatom's electric power division), Uralatomenergoremont and BAES-Auto (both Rosatom subsidiaries), as well as observers from the Novovoronezh NPP and Akkuyu NPP (of Turkey) participated in the inspection.
According to Rosatom's report, the OSART team’s leader Morgan Simon said the specialists were unanimous the Beloyarsk NPP very close to the ideal image of the safest NPP and boasted dedicated, knowledgeable and professional personnel. Simon said he was leaving with the certainty that it was a completely safe nuclear plant.
The OSART team spent three weeks looking into the reliability of the NPP and personnel performance in accordance with IAEA requirements. The experts scrutinized the machine room, central hall, main and standby control rooms and the 4th reactor’s pump facility. Together with employees they made rounds along the routes of on-duty electricians and operators of reactor and turbine departments, observed scheduled switching operations, briefings in the central hall, equipment repair admission procedures, and studied technical regulations and documents. After the inspection, the OSART mission submitted a draft final report to the nuclear plant’s management. The final report will be approved at the IAEA head office in Vienna within three weeks and forwarded to the Russian government within three months.
The I.V. Kurchatov Beloyarsk NPP is a branch of Rosenergoatom, put into operation in April 1964. Its first power units equipped with thermal neutron reactors AMB-100 and AMB-200 were shut down when their service life expired. The fast-neutron reactors BN-600 (commissioned in 1980) and BN-800 (commissioned in 2015) are in operation. These are the world's largest power units with fast neutron reactors. In terms of reliability and safety, they are among the world’s leaders.