Anisul Islam Noor :
The Bangladesh government has decided to install 3-plus generation reactor VVER-TOI with capacity 1200 MW, the latest and highly secured technology so far in the world, in the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant, the first-ever atomic power plant at Ishwardi in Pabna.
If it is installed, it would be the first transfer of such technology outside Russia, official sources said.
State Minister for power energy and mineral resources Nasrul Hamid told The New Nation on Thursday, the technology is recognized as European standard and all of the nuclear power plant experts have agreed about its superiority and safety standard.
“The government of Bangladesh earlier had planned that generation-3 reactor VVER-1000 with a capacity of 1000MW would be installed in the under-construction. The plan is now changed. Russia has taken the decision of changing the technology after getting green signal from Bangladesh,” the Minister said.
Meanwhile, government’s Fast Tract Project Monitoring Taskforce sources said this decision of changing technology has been made after a delegation of high government officials and experts visited two nuclear power plants in Russia where the 3-plus Generation reactor were installed.
Russian company NIAEP Engineering Ltd has already started chalking out the design for the new-technology reactor. In fact, from the very beginning, Bangladesh experts had been asking for a change in the reactor technology.
Bangladesh and Russia are likely to strike the final deal to implement the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant, and the matter of changing of reactor technology would be included in that deal.
According to information available, the VVER-TOI reactor is the export-version of Russia’s VVER-1200 model reactor. Russia would export its VVER-1200 model reactor as the VVER-TOI reactor.
The VVER-TOI reactor developed by Russian scientists has been used in no nuclear power plant in the world so far, except one in Russia which is now on a test-run. Apart from this, a nuclear power plant with the VVER-TOI reactor is going to be set up at Leningrad.
Terming the VVER-TOI reactor as European standard, Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission’s former Chief Engineer Abdul Matin said, “If the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant is set up with the new technology reactor, we will have no worry over the safety and no question would arise over the safety of the plant.”
“There would be no big difference in price of the reactors. Besides, more power will be generated with the new technology reactor,” he also said.
Earlier on May 13, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina requested the Russian government to speed up the implementation process of the much-awaited Rooppur nuclear power plant project. The PM made the request when Russian Ambassador to Bangladesh Alexander A Nikolaev made a courtesy call on her at Prime Minister’s Office.
It is learnt that, the government is negotiating to get loan of $1,200 crore ($12 billion) from Russia to set up the Rooppur power plant as Russia is pledge-bound to provide Bangladesh with loans as much as 90 per cent of the total of project cost. So, the nuclear power plant may cost about $1,500 crore ($15 billion) including $55 crore for the feasibility study.
Bangladesh earlier had signed a deal with Russia’s state-owned nuclear giant Rosatom to construct the nuclear plant. Russia will provide all assistance under the agreement for setting up the plant, including providing the fuel and taking back the used fuel. A total of 262 acres of land have been acquired to set up two units of the plant with a capacity of 2,000-MW.
In this backdrop, the project cost has increased to a large extent compared to the government’s assumption, it is not only because of the change of technology, rather geological structure and scarcity of water in the project area has helped make it costlier, according to sources.
