OREANDA-NEWS. July 3, 2009. Director General of Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation Sergey Kiriyenko held the first guest meeting of the Board of the Corporation at Smolensk Nuclear Power Plant.

He pointed out that such meetings would be made a tradition.

During the visit Kiriyenko familiarized himself with the work of Smolensk NPP.

He told journalists afterwards that Smolensk NPP was the best among Russia’s NPPs with RBMK reactors.

Kiriyenko said that the short-term task of Smolensk NPP was the extension of the service lives of its reactors. 

“If we do nothing, we will have to shut down the 1st unit in 2012, the 2nd – in 2015, the 3rd – in 2020. However, we are going to extend their lives. Next year the 1st unit will be stopped for a long-term maintenance (260 days), during which we will modernize its automatics, control panels and electronics. As a result, the life of the unit will be prolonged for 15–20 years,” Kiriyenko said.

“We are constantly enhancing the operating safety parameters of Smolensk NPP so as to ensure its effective functioning till 2035.”  

“At the same time, we are considering the possibility of building a substituting plant. We are attentively following the energy consumption forecasts of the Energy Ministry. If the consumption in the region grows to the level requiring urgent launch of new capacities, we will start the project earlier than planned. The tendency observed in the first half of this year makes this scenario quite possible: Smolensk NPP produced 2.6% more than planned, which means that the energy consumption in this region is growing despite 6% decline on a nationwide level.”