About $250 million saved by Belarusian nuclear power plant's 1st unit so far

Minsk, December 23 – Neftegaz.RU. The 1^st unit of the Belarusian nuclear power plant has allowed the country to save about $250 million by substituting imported natural gas, BelTA learned from Prime Minister of Belarus Roman Golovchenko on 22 December.

Since the 1^st unit of the Belarusian NPP was connected to the power grid and till the end of 2021, the unit generated 6 billion kWh of electricity.
Once both units of the Belarusian NPP are operational, the country will be able to substitute about 4.5 billion m3 of natural gas per annum.

Roman Golovchenko noted:

• It opens up new opportunities for increasing electricity consumption, which enjoys a strong demand right now. Investors already contact us
• They are interested in buying large amounts of electricity for their own needs
• I am talking about energy-intensive manufacturing and other popular industries such as cryptocurrency mining

The stage of Belarus NPP power unit №1 physical start-up started on August 7, 2020, on November 3 the unit was connected to the grid of Belarus and on December 22, 2020 - proceeded to the trial commercial operation.

All power units are equipped with the «core catcher» - a core melt localization device of the nuclear reactor, as well as other passive safety systems capable to work without power supply and an operator’s participation.

Moreover, the capacity of the reactor unit has increased by 20%, the number of service staff has been significantly decreased, the design service life of the main equipment has increased twice - from 30 to 60 years with a possibility of prolongation by 20 more years.