On 1 March, 2018 at 00:24 MSK at Leningrad NPP (a branch of Rosenergoatom Concern, a part of Rosatom’s Electric Energy Division) the turbine trial run of the innovative power unit No 1 with VVER-1200 reactor has been completed: the specialists made it run at idle, gradually increasing the number of rotations up to the design values.

“This operation is one of the most important operations during the power unit preparation for electric energy generation. The turbine testing in the idle mode was carried out successfully. We got to 3,000 rotations per minute. We had no remarks to equipment work, everything works without failure. Parameters of thermal and mechanical conditions of the turbine did not exceed the set limits. I thank the team of start-up participants – the operating personnel of the nuclear power plant, fixers, adjusters for their highly professional work; they brought the turbine into the nominal rotation condition in almost one day and night”, the Chief Engineer of Leningrad NPP under construction Aleksandr Belyaev said. He also explained that this operation was carried out with the reactor capacity of 30%. This is the value that is necessary for steam generation enough for the first turbine start.

“We controlled the whole process of starting-up and adjustment works of the turbine island main equipment. This start-up has showed that the high-speed steam turbine, the turbine generator, and the turbine plant system equipment are designed and assembled well and they will be operated safely and reliably in full concordance with the design for the next 50 years”, Andrey Timakov, the Deputy Head of Turbine Shop of Leningrad NPP under construction, commented on the work of the main technological equipment.

As the First Deputy Technical Manager of Commissioning Works of Kalininatomtekhenergo Konstantin Zelevskiy explained, in the nearest future the specialists would carry out a number of the planned tests of the equipment and technological systems in order to once more prove their reliability and safety. Only after this the power unit will be connected to the network and will start giving the first kilowatt hours in to the Unified Energy System of Russia.

It is to be recalled that the start-up operations at Leningrad NPP 3+ generation power unit No 1 with VVER-1200 reactor started on 8 December, 2017, when the first fuel assemblies with the fresh nuclear fuel (Physical Start-up stage) were loaded in the reactor core. On 6 February, 2018 the reactor unit of power unit No 1 was brought to a minimum controllable power giving a start to a number of tests. On 15 February, 2018 the physical start-up program of the power unit No 1 with VVER-1200 was fully completed. On 22 February, 2018 the power start-up stage has begun at the unit No 1 with VVER-1200 reactor. During this stage a complex testing of the unit with the gradual design power testing will be carried out.

Leningrad NPP is a branch of Rosenergoatom Concern JSC. The Plant is located at the town of Sosnovy Bor, 40 km west of St. Petersburg on the shore of the Gulf of Finland. LNPP is the first plant in the country with RBMK-1000 reactors (thermal-neutron heat-pipe cooled uranium-graphite nuclear reactors). The NPP operates four power units with an electric capacity of 1,000 MW each. The first unit of replacement capacities with VVER-1200 reactor is at the physical start-up stage, the second VVER-1200 type unit is under construction. Rosenergoatom Concern JSC is the customer-developer of the project, ATOMPROEKT JSC is the general designer, and CONTSERN TITAN-2 JSC is the general contractor.