The final unit (unit 4) of Russia’s Bilibino NPP in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug has been shut down. Units 2&3 were closed earlier in December. Bilibino NPP comprised four unique 12 MWe uranium-graphite pressure-tube EGP-6 reactors commissioned between 1974 and 1976. The EGP-6 reactor (Energeticheskii Geterogennii Petlevoi Reaktor) is a scaled-down version of the larger RBMK design, that uses graphite as a moderator and light water for cooling with natural circulation, making it suitable for remote, permafrost regions.
The decision to close the reactors was approved in March 2016. Unit 1 was shut down in 2018 and used fuel from the reactor core has been transferred to the holding pool. In 2004, the operating life of unit 2 was extended for 15 years. The used fuel from power units 2-4 will also be removed to the station cooling pools over the next two years, but the status of the Bilibino NPP as an operating nuclear facility will remain, according to nuclear utility Rosenergoatom.
For the Rosenergoatom Concern, the shutdown of all power units at the Bilibino NPP is the first experience of a complete shutdown of a nuclear power plant in industrial operation. Despite the fact that all four units are closed, the station will continue to operate in generation-free mode,” said Bilibino NPP Director Konstantin Kholopov. “The substitution of energy capacities is being undertaken by the Floating Nuclear Thermal Power Plant (FNPP), located in Pevek (Chukotka), and heat for the city is generated by the new Energy Centre.”
The transition to the green field status will occur in stages. After the used nuclear fuel is removed for processing (by approximately 2042), decommissioning work will begin. Dismantling will take place, as well as decontamination of equipment and structures, and radioactive waste management. In 2053-2054 The liquidation and transfer of the property of the Bilibino NPP to municipal ownership will begin, and the rehabilitation of the site to green field status is expected to begin in 2054-2055.
It is expected that until work to remove the used fuel is completed (2027) most of the staff positions will remain, and personnel from the closed units will be transferred to understaffed departments. Beyond 2027, a roadmap will be developed for specialists of the Bilibino NPP to transfer employees to other divisions of the Electric Power Division and other divisions of Rosatom.
Bilibino NPP was built in 1974 and operated for more than half a century in the permafrost zone. By the time the four units were shut down they had operated for a total of more than 190 reactor-years, supplying over 11.6 TWh of electricity. In the conditions of the Far North, the process of decommissioning a nuclear power plant is as complex as their construction. The experience of the Bilibino NPP will be unique on an industry scale, since not a single industrially used site in Russia has ever shut down all its power units at the same time.
