28.09.2007 // Press service of Rosenergoatom

Awarding of the winners of the competition of students’ research projects “Knowledge of Young Nuclear Power Engineers to Nuclear Power Plants” took place in Obninsk

The results of the competition of students’ research projects “Knowledge of Young Nuclear Power Engineers to Nuclear Power Plants” were announced in Obninsk on Sept 26–27. The awarding ceremony took place at the House of Scientists on Sept 27.

While opening the ceremony the deputy director general-the director for scientific-technical policy of Rosenergoatom Vladimir Asmolov pointed out that today the industry needs highly qualified specialists. “We need highly qualified personnel so to fuel the second renaissance of our nuclear power industry.”

“2006 was a year of records. Our nuclear power plants produced 154.7bln KWh – 16% of the total electricity production in the country. Today, nuclear energy is one of the pillars of our energy sector. Without nuclear energy we will hardly meet the growing energy demand in Russia.”

Asmolov forecasted new records in the sector this year.

He told the students about the industry’s development plans till 2020. “Particularly, we are planning to enhance the capacity and to improve the performance of our reactors, to enhance their capacity factor, to create a basis for introducing closed nuclear fuel cycle.”

Asmolov pointed out the importance of personnel policy for the Concern. “We need specialists, without them we will have nothing. I hope – and the results of the competition have proved this – that in the near future we will witness a big inflow of young specialists into the sector. We will do our best to foster this process.”

The head of Rosenergoatom’s Personnel Management Department Andrey Ilyichev said that the Concern would encourage talented youths to come into the sphere. “I think that in the near future we will recruit lots of talented and competent youths.”

The key goal of the annual corporate competition is to stimulate the interest of future nuclear power engineers in their profession and to support the most talented and creative students and their supervisors.

The competition was organized by Obninsk State Technical University for Nuclear Power Engineering. The rector of the university Nikolay Salnikov is the chairman of the jury.

This year the competition had nine topics:

• Operation and repairs of nuclear power plants;
• Physics and modeling of processes at nuclear power units;
• Steam turbine systems of nuclear power plants;
• Reactor operation and protection systems;
• Electrical equipment of nuclear power plants;
• Ecology of nuclear power engineering;
• Automated process control systems at nuclear power plants;
• Water and fuel technologies in nuclear power engineering;
• Safety and non-proliferation of nuclear materials.

Students of 13 universities took part in the competition.

The best works were submitted to the Rosenergoatom Jury chaired by the deputy director general-director for scientific-technical policy of Rosenergoatom Vladimir Asmolov. The jury selected 34 best works: 8 of them got the first prize, 12 – the second and 14 – the third.

The first place winners will get 30,000 RUR each, their supervisors – 10,000 RUR, the second place winners – 20,000 RUR, supervisors – 7,000 RUR, the third place winners – 10,000 RUR, supervisors – 5,000 RUR.

The organizers hope that the competition will grow increasingly popular and will popularize nuclear power engineering and attract more and more talented youths into the sphere.

This is the second competition. The first one was conducted in 2004 and was dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the nuclear power industry. This year REA decided to make it annual.

This year’s competition was dedicated to the 15th anniversary of Rosenergoatom.