Andrey Gagarinsky, advisor of the Director of Kurchatov Institute

– Our NPP projects meet all modern quality and safety standards

Our NPP projects meet all modern quality and safety standards. So, their success on the world market is quite logical. The NPP-92 project carried out at Belene NPP in Bulgaria is a version of our WWER reactor (pressurized water reactor). The Bulgarians have always used our WWERs – their existing Kozloduy NPP also operates WWER reactors.

The people operating Kozloduy perfectly know our plants, our experience and the advantages of Russian nuclear reactors. So, it was quite natural that in 2006 the National Electric Company of Bulgaria proclaimed Atomstroyexport OJSC as the winner of the tender for the construction of Belene NPP. Belene will have two WWER-100/V-466 reactors.

In 2007 we made a contract with one of the main sub-contractors, CARSIB, a consortium of Areva NP and Siemens. CARSIB will supply Belene NPP with equipment, particularly, with control systems. I think that this is a quite normal situation: cooperation among the major NPP builders in the world is the best way to meet the growing needs of the world market. The world will need so many reactors that there will be work for all. Today we must quickly develop nuclear energy in the world. Otherwise, we may face a global energy crisis. 

We must develop all possible sources of energy. But even this will hardly solve all our problems. So, we must actively develop nuclear energy.

Our country is planning to increase the share of NPPs in its total energy production to 25%. This is not enough for meeting all of our demands. This is just the limit of our present capacities. Unfortunately, we can’t do this quickly. Our task is to raise this figure as much as possible by 2020–2030 so as to avoid energy crisis and to stop burning gas for producing electricity.