Akademic Lomonosov, the world’s first floating nuclear power plant (NPP), has been fully commissioned in Pevek, Chukotka region in the Russian Far East.

The NPP was built by Russian state atomic energy corporation Rosatom via its electric power division Rosenergoatom.

Rosenergoatom director Andrei Petrov said: “Today we can consider the floating nuclear power plant construction project successfully completed. We finished our main task for this year – fully commissioned the FNPP in Pevek, Chukotka region.

“Today, it officially becomes the 11th nuclear power plant in Russia and the northernmost one in the world.”

Earlier, Russia’s technical, nuclear and environmental watchdog Rostechnadzor performed an inspection of the project.

Based on the results, a ‘statement of conformity’ was issued to the power plant, verifying its compliance with all project documentation requirements. Rosprirodnadzor, the executive authority in environmental management, also approved the project.

The Akademic Lomonosov started delivering electricity to the isolated grid of the Chaun-Bilibino energy centre of Chukotka on 19 December 2019. The plant has generated more than 47.3 million kWh of electricity since being linked to the grid.

So far, the power plant covers 20% of the Chaun-Bilibino energy centre demand. It is expected to become the primary energy source for Chukotka after the Bilibino NPP shutdown.

The floating nuclear power plant includes coastal infrastructure and the Akademik Lomonosov floating power unit (FPU) features two KLT-40S reactors with 35MW electric power each.

With a service life of 40 years, the Akademik Lomonosov plant has a power capacity of 70MW and a heat capacity of 50Gcal/h. The plant’s length is 140m, its width is 30m and displacement is 21,500 tonnes.