Semyon Dragulsky, Director General of Russian Energy Efficiency Union

– The instruction of the Prime Minister to start intensified development of the network infrastructure is good news for the nuclear industry

On July 29 Prime Minister of Russia, Chairman of United Russia party Vladimir Putin held a government conference on nuclear energy development in Elektrostal.

The past government meeting was very important: it has passed a crucial decision to synchronize the investment programs of the Federal Network Company and Rosatom. It is obvious that in order to effectively develop the nuclear sector we need developed networks.

The peculiarity of the nuclear industry is that the best way to operate a nuclear reactor is to operate it at a full capacity. A nuclear reactor cannot work at an alternating capacity: it either works 100% or does not work at all. Today, the key cause of reactor shutdowns is so-called control restrictions – the point is that the electric network is unable to transmit all our nuclear reactors can produce. So, it turns out that the poor development of the network curbs the development of the nuclear industry. The project of the 5th unit of Kursk NPP is a vivid example of this situation: the unit is almost ready but it cannot be finished because there are no relevant networks.

The instruction of the Prime Minister to start intensified development of the network infrastructure is one of the key results of the past conference. It will result in serious revision of the general schemed for the allocation of power facilities in Russia till 2020. I think that as a result of this revision the nuclear energy will get more construction sites.