Fuel loading into country's N-power plant Apr 28

Hope of having cheaper clean electricity rises as the much-awaited fuel loading into Bangladesh's maiden nuclear power plant takes place tomorrow amid global fuel crisis.
"Everything is set for fuel loading into Bangladesh's first nuclear unit, the 1,200-megawatt Rooppur-1, on Tuesday and its subsequent commissioning," secretary at the Ministry of Science and Technology Md Anowar Hossain told The Financial Express Sunday.
He said government high-ups, top officials of Russian firm Rosatom and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will be present at the fuel loading ceremony at the plant site at Rooppur of Ishwardi in Pabna district.
Officials say after several weeks of fuel loading, the unit-1 of the 2,400mw Rooppur nuclear power plant will start generating electricity. There will be an incremental rise in power generation: 300 megawatts by August and 500mws by October. The full-capacity production of 1,200mw electricity from the unit-1 will be available by January 2027, the officials add.
Fuel loading into the second unit of the nuclear power plant might start by June 2027.

"The entire nuclear power plant will fully be operational by September 2027," says one official.
Once in full operation, he adds, the country's maiden nuclear facility will be able to provide around 10 to 12 per cent of the country's overall electricity need.
Earlier, the regulatory hurdles to fuel loading were removed on April 16 when the country's nuclear authority granted the commissioning licence to Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission (BAEC), the implementing authority of the Rooppur nuclear power plant (RNPP).
"Bangladesh Atomic Energy Regulatory Authority (BAERA) issued the licence following rigorous inspections and reviews from both national and international regulatory bodies," BAERA chairman Mahmudul Hasan has said,
Earlier, the regulator for the county's nuclear-power entities, BAERA, had not provided licence required for going ahead with the fuel loading, resulting in the postponement of the fuel loading slated for April 7.
A number of issues, including fire-fighting preparedness of the RNPP project, were cited as the reasons.
Bangladesh urgently needs to augment electricity production and add new capacity to the national grid to ensure energy security and meet a mounting demand.
The 2,400mw-capacity RNPP project is being implemented at a cost of US$12.65 billion, with Russia providing 90 per cent of the project's funding as loan.
Russian state-owned Rosatom is constructing the power plant with two VVER-1200 reactors, each having a capacity of 1,200 megawatts.
Construction of Unit-1 formally began on November 30, 2017, and Unit-2 on July 14, 2018.
According to the original project proposal, Unit-1 was to be operational by December 23, 2022 and Unit-2 by October 8, 2023. The entire project was scheduled for completion by December 31, 2025. The COVID-19 pandemic and complexities over payment issues due to the Russia-Ukraine war along with several inter-related factors delayed the project works.
The drawbacks also included incomplete safety tests and compliance procedures required for power startup, uncertainty regarding actual project costs impacting the finalization of the power-purchase agreement, lack of necessary gridlines, the preparedness of certified reactor operators, and the absence of an established emergency preparedness and response centre.
Russia supplied fuel a couple of years back and the fuel loading at Unit-1 of the nuclear power plant was then planned for early November 2025 and start of operation December 2025.
"A slowdown in the project works after the July-August uprising in 2024 and subsequent change of government have delayed the RNPP works further," says the MoST official.
The plant comprises two 1,200mw VVER-1200 reactors, the latest Russian generation 3+ Russian reactor technology.
Azizjst@yahoo.com