Highest cooling tower in Russia to be built at Kursk II

28 January 2020


Kursk II construction site pictured in 2019 (Credit: Rosenergoatom)The evaporative cooling tower at Russia’s Kursk II nuclear power plant will be the highest in Russia at 179m, the plant has announced.

The builders have begun concreting the annular foundation of the tower. The first grapple laid more than 1100 cubic meters of concrete. In total, 6050 cubic meters of concrete will be used for the foundations.

“Since the cooling tower will be the highest, the outer surface area of the exhaust tower shell will also be a record - 53,150 square metres,” said Rostislav Kimlik deputy chief engineer of the capital construction department of Kursk II.

The radius of the ring foundation of the tower is 71.736m. The total volume of concrete that will be used to form the shell is an estimated 14078 cubic metres.

In 2020, builders plan to build the evaporative cooling tower to a level of 10.7m.

Units 1&2 of Kursk II are pilot units under construction for the VVER-TOI project – an evolution of the VVER-1200. They have improved technical and economic indicators compared to other generation 3+ units, including a significant reduction in construction costs, timelines and operating costs. The service life of the main equipment is doubled.

On 24 January the Izhora plant, part of the OMZ group, shipped 200 tonnes of equipment for Kursk II-1. The equipment is intended for use during transportation and installation of reactor components.

Kursk II is a replacement station for the current Kursk NPP which is approaching the end of its service life. Suppliers of key equipment for the Kursk II are Izhora Plant and AEM Technologies.

Currently, construction at Kursk II employs more than 4700 people, and in 2020 a further 1000 will be brought in. The commissioning of the first two units will be synchronised with the decommissioning of the existing Kursk units.


Photo: Kursk II under construction in 2019 (Credit: Rosenergoatom)



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