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NuclearPlantJournal.com Nuclear Plant Journal, July-August 2015
Rosatom
Overview
Kirill Komarov, ROSATOM.
Kirill Komarov
Kirill Komarov serves as First Deputy
CEO for Corporate Development and
International Business, ROSATOM.
Mr Komarov has worked in Rosatom
subsidiaries since
2006. In 2010, he
was appointed CEO
of Atomenergoprom,
and concurrently
worked as Director
of ROSATOM’s
Nuclear Power
Directorate. Since
April 2011, Mr
Komarov has
served as Deputy
CEO for Corporate
Development and
International
Business while
remaining CEO of
Atomenergoprom.
From 1996 to
2000, he worked
for YurCon, a consulting company in
Yekaterinburg. Mr Komarov continued
his career in Renova Group. In 2005,
Komarov joined the Federal Water
Resources Agency as Deputy Director.
He graduated from the Urals State Law
Academy and then, after completion
of a postgraduate course, received an
advanced law degree.
Responses to questions by Newal
Agnihotri, Editor of Nuclear Plant
Journal.
1.
How many plants (and for how many
total dollars) were sold by Rusatom to
overseas buyers in 2013 and 2014?
In post-Fukushima period, i.e. during
the last 4 years, we signed new contracts
on NPP construction, supplies of fuel,
enriched uranium product, and services
for more than 80 billion dollars, and at
the year end 2014 our backlog of orders
was 101.4 billion dollars for a 10-year
period.
Though ambitious but achievable
Rosatom’s goal for the next 5 years is
signing of contracts for construction of
30 - 40 new power units while backlog
of orders can be up to 190 billion dollars.
At the moment Rosatom is imple-
menting
construc-
tion projects of 29
NPP units abroad - in
countries in Europe,
Middle East and the
Asia-Pacific region
(in comparison with
12 power units in
2011, just before the
accident at the Fuku-
shima NPP), and 9
units on the Russian
Federation territory.
Our task is to
increase the foreign
orders share up to
108 billion dollars
by the end of 2015,
and this task is quite
accomplishable.
Rosatom is de-
veloping cooperation with the Republic
of South Africa, Algeria, and Nigeria.
Negotiations are under way with Egypt,
the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Latin
America countries.
2.
What is the different reactor models
offered to the international clients?
The most safe and, as a consequence,
the most common technology in the world
is a power reactor with pressurized water.
This reactor engineering technology is
used by Russian and foreign companies,
while the Western European reactor
is called PWR, and the Russian one –
VVER.
VVER was designed in the USSR in
the middle of the 50s under the scientific
supervision of I.P. Kurchatov and A.P.
Aleksandrov. The first Soviet VVER
(VVER-210) was commissioned in 1964
at the first unit of the Novovoronezh
NPP. The first foreign VVER plant was
Rheinsberg NPP (DDR) that was put into
operation in 1966. Since then, the reactor
has passed a long evolution process
mostly regarding its safety systems.
NPPs with Russian reactors have been
successfully working for a long time not
only in Russia, Ukraine and Armenia,
but also in European countries (Finland,
Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary,
and Bulgaria), Asian and Middle East
countries (China, India and Iran).
Hundreds of thousands accident-free
reactor-years have been worked at these
NPPs, generations of specialists have
been trained, safe operation methods
have been developed for nearly 50 years.
Power units built by Russia today,
belong to the so-called generation 3+
and meet increased safety and earthquake
resistance requirements, as well as all
post-Fukushima safety requirements.
Modern VVER designs combine active
and passive safety systems.
Due to certain structural differences
Russian reactors have a number of
advantages over foreign counterparts,
including horizontal steam generators,
which reduce corrosion, facilitate repair
and maintenance and bring down cost;
hexagonal fuel assemblies, which
improve the technical and economic
characteristics of the fuel due to increased
campaign and extended fuel cycles; a
powerful pressurizer, which provides a
long-term, safe and trouble-free operation
of a steam generating system.
Russia is the pioneer in the
development of fast neutron reactors.
A very small number of countries have
the fast reactor technologies, and Russia
is the world leader in this field. The
power startup of 800 MW Unit 4 at the
Beloyarsk NPP is planned in 2015. BN-
800 is the development of a unique BN-
600 which has been under pilot operation
for more than 30 years. Fast reactors now
only operate in two countries - Russia
and China. However in China, the pilot
research fast-neutron reactor, called the
CEFR, was built by Russian nuclear
specialists using the Russian technology.
Fast reactors are called reactors of
the future. Besides electricity generation,
these reactors are also providing for
expanded reproduction of nuclear fuel
