Construction, installation work done

The construction and installation works at Unit-1 of the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant (RNPP) have been completed, Russia's state-owned nuclear energy company Rosatom said in a statement on Wednesday.
The personnel of the RNPP has started a large-scale test programme for physical start-up, said the statement. The first stage of operation began to bring the reactor plant to the rated parameters on December 18, it said.
During this stage, the operability of equipment and mechanisms will be tested. The reactor coolant pumps (RPC) will be launched and tested for the first time. The reactor plant will be tested at the rated parameters without nuclear fuel. Once the compliance of the equipment with all the design parameters is confirmed, the unit will be ready for the start-up operations, said the statement.
"We have entered the final preparation of Rooppur NPP Unit- 1 for the physical start-up. This is an important stage where we must carry out a large scope of work and tests to prove the operability of the process systems in all the operating modes," said Andrey Petrov, First Deputy Director General for Nuclear Energy of Rosatom and President of ASE.
"We fulfill all our obligations and guarantee the reliability and safety of our technologies. The first nuclear power plant in Bangladesh will support the country's economy and will work for the benefit of its future generations," he said.
Commissioning of RNPP will ensure supply of environmentally-friendly and safe energy providing for around 10 per cent of the total energy consumption in Bangladesh, the Rosatom statement said.
But the commissioning of the RNPP will face delays as the construction work of the required transmission line to evacuate electricity from the RNPP is not yet completed, said a senior official of Bangladesh's state-run Power Grid Company Bangladesh (PGCB).
Although the construction and installation work have been completed, the commissioning of the RNPP will not be possible without the transmission line, he said.
Building around 16 kilometer (km) of transmission lines over two major rivers - 9.0 km over the Jamuna River and 7.0 km over the Padma River - might be completed within the next several months, he said.
Maintaining frequency in the power transmission system from the RNPP project will be the biggest challenge after completion of the river-crossing power transmission lines, he said.
Fuel loading in the unit will start once construction of the transmission line is complete, the official added.
The PGCB official said that the construction work of the transmission line was halted during mid-July when the mighty river saw huge flow of water. After mid-July, the construction work ceased again due to the mass uprising that toppled the Awami League government on August 5, he said.
The RNPP equipped with two Russian VVER-1200 reactors having the total capacity of 2400 MW is being constructed at Ishwardi upazila in Pabna in accordance with General Contract signed on December 25, 2015.
The VVER-1200 reactors belong to evolutionary Generation III+ design which fully complies with all the international safety requirements. Engineering Division of Rosatom is the General Designer and General Contractor of the Rooppur project.

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