Rooppur plant ready for commercial production

The first unit of Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant is all set to go for commercial production date (COD) as the ‘flushing’ of various systems has begun, leaving its reactor open.

The next stage will be the specialized “Post Installation Cleaning (PIC)”, said a press release issued by the state-run nuclear giant on Saturday.

“This stage, the chemically demineralized water is supplied to the reactor vessel through the connection pipeline and primary circuit pipelines, the water removes impurities left after the installation of the equipment and the pipelines,” the release said.

“Flushing of active and passive safety systems with the open reactor is one of the most important pre-commissioning operations. This is the first of a whole series of inspections of equipment and process systems, it is the result of the long-term work of assemblers, adjusters and other specialists involved in the construction of the first nuclear power plant in Bangladesh,” said Alexey Deriy, Vice President of ASE JSC and Project Director of Rooppur NPP Construction Project.

The flushing allows us to make sure that everything has been installed correctly and is ready for operation. Besides, it checks the operability of pump units of the process safety systems and normal operation systems.

It also said that the general designer and contactor of Rooppar nuclear power project is the engineering branch of Rosatom Corporation of Russia. The project will have two units, each with a capacity of 1,200 MW.

Around 33,000 people have been working on the Rooppur power plant construction.

Of them, 5,500 are foreign workers, including 4,000 Russians, according to the project officials.

With the first nuclear power plant at Rooppur, Bangladesh will become the third Asian country -- after India and Pakistan -- to harness the power of the atoms.

Nuclear power plants built with VVER-1200 reactors are characterised by an unprecedented level of safety, which allows them to be classified as generation “3+”.