The plant, named after I. Kurchatov, was the eldest nuclear plant in the USSR.
A comfortable modern town Zarechny has been built for the constructors and employees of Beloyarsk NPP on the shore of a lake amidst picturesque pine woods.
The town has a college that trains nuclear power engineers.
The plant was constructed in 3 stages:
- Stage 1 - power units № 1 and № 2 with AMB reactor
- Stage 2 – power unit № 3 with BN-500 reactor
- Stage 3 – power unit № 4 with a new BN-800 reactor featuring 885 MW installed capacity
They are now in a long-term conservation mode with the fuel unloaded from the reactor.
In terms of international standards, they are at the 1st stage of NPP decommissioning.
The Beloyarsk NPP runs 2 power units with BN reactors.
The plant hosted one of the key events of the year in the national nuclear power industry - the brand-new power unit № 4 with BN-800 fast breeder reactor (885 MW installed capacity) was put into commercial operation on October 31, 2016.
In January 2020, BN-800, the world’s most powerful operational fast neutron reactor at Unit 4 of Beloyarsk NPP in Russia, has been loaded with the 1st serial batch of MOX fuel made of depleted uranium and plutonium oxides.
In February 2021, Power unit № 4 with the BN-800 reactor has been connected to the grid and resumed operations upon completion of the scheduled maintenance.
For the 1st time the refueling has been carried out with uranium-plutonium fuel only.
Thus, the BN-800 core is now 1/3 filled with innovative fuel.
From now on, only MOX fuel will be loaded into this reactor.
