Annual scheduled maintenance has been completed at the Akademik Lomonosov floating NPP (PATES – Plavuchaya Atomnaya TeploElektroStantsiya) in Pevek, Chukotka. It was the second maintenance this year – the vessel’s two KLT-40S reactor units are shut down separately to ensure an uninterrupted supply of electrical and thermal energy to the region.
In July, planned repairs took place at the reactor unit on the starboard side of the PATES. Work began on the port side in September and has been completed two weeks ahead of schedule. Specialists not only carried out scheduled maintenance of the main equipment, but also carried out a whole range of unique, technically complex operations to restore the resource characteristics of reactor installations including replacement of the steam generators.
“More than 100 employees of the floating NPP and the contracting organisation JSC Atomenergoremont were involved in this most important repair campaign,” said Chief Engineer Andrey Zaslavsky. “It was thanks to their coordinated work that it was possible to reduce the repair time by 14 days while ensuring the high quality of the work.”
He added that this will guarantee reliable power supply to the entire isolated Chaun-Bilibino region of Chukotka even after the decommissioning of the Bilibino NPP, which is scheduled for December 2025. Akademik Lomonosov, which began operation in 2020, will then be only nuclear source of electricity generation in the western part of Chukotka, providing over 90% of the region’s needs.
The PATES supplies energy to the main mining enterprises located in the west of Chukotka, in the Chaun-Bilibinsky energy hub – a large ore and metal cluster that includes gold mining companies and projects related to the development of the Baim ore zone. The total capacity of the NPP supplied to the Pevek coastal network excluding the consumption of thermal energy by the shore is about 70 MWe, or 44 MWe when operating in the mode of maximum heat output. The population of Pevek is a little over 4,000, while the NPP can potentially provide electricity to a city with a population of up to 100,000.
