Rosatom has completed development of nuclear fuel for the RITM-200S reactor facility designed for the Modernised Floating Power Units (MPEP) project. These installations will supply power to the Baimsky Mining and Processing Plant in Chukotka.
Rosatom’s Fuel Company TVEL tasked the designers of OKBM Afrikantov to develop a technical design for the core of the RITM-200S reactor. The fuel elements, burnable absorber rods and the starting neutron source were developed by specialists of the AA Bochvar Research Institute of Inorganic Materials (VNIINM - part of TVEL). The production of the core will be undertaken by Mashinostroitelny Zavod in Electrostal (MSZ -also part of TVEL) in Elektrostal.
The upgraded floating NPP (FNPP) includes two RITM-200S reactor units each with a thermal power of 198 MWt. Compared with the KLT-40S reactors used in the FNPP Akademik Lomonosov, which has been providing power to Pevek in Chukotka since 2020, the new generation reactors RITM-200S will be more efficient with an increased level of safety. The core of the RITM-200S reactor plant will produce four times more energy than the core of KLT-40S. It will also have a longer interval between refuelling of about five years, double that of the Akademik Lomonosov FNPP.
These RITM-200S reactors will used to provide power for the major project, which is being implemented to build a mining and processing plant based on the porphyry copper deposit Peschanka in the Bilibinsky District of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. The capacity of the mine will be 70 million tons of ore a year (1.4 million tons of copper concentrate). Rosatom plans to construct four MPEPs each with two new RITM-200S reactor units - three main units and one on standby, which will be used during the repair or maintenance of the others.
RITM type reactors are used for various projects based on low-power power plants including a new generation of nuclear-powered icebreakers of project 22220, four of which have been launched with a fifth under construction. In addition, Rosatom is implementing a pilot project to build a low-power ground-based nuclear power plant with a RITM-200N reactor plant to supply power to remote areas of Yakutia.
Image: Russia's MPEP project (courtesy of Rosatom)
