On July 4-5 Federation Council Committee on natural monopolies held the first meeting of subcommittee on nuclear power at Leningrad NPP (Sosnoviy Bor, Leningrad region), Rosatom press-center wrote.

During the first day of meeting the participants visited Leningrad NPP and the site of construction of storage for spent nuclear fuel (HOYAT -2), as well as the site of Leningrad NPP- 2.

The second day of the meeting was devoted to discussion of the state of regulatory base necessary for realization of the Federal target program "Development of nuclear power and industry complex of Russia in 2007-2010 and further until 2015".

Representatives of Roatom, Rostechnadzor, design companies, local administration and public organizations spoke at the meeting.

Subcommittee made a decision allowing to accelerate the process of realization of the federal target program for development of nuclear power and industrial complex of Russia. In particular, Rosatom together with Rostechatomnadzor proposed to approve invariability of design documentation for series of NPP units of the same type during their construction.

Participants also proposed to prepare a number of corrections in legislation in force with the aim to introduce notion "engineering" (first in the RF Civil code) as the main kind of jural relation, as well as a number of changes in regulatory documents for more full consideration of nuclear industry features in Russia.

The first deputy chairmen of Council Federation Commission of natural monopolies, Valentin Mezhevuch, told at press-conference: "Actually we will have to double the volume of power production at NPPs. It is a new stage of accelerated development of nuclear power".

He noted that the participants discussed the bottlenecks, which can balk realization of the program, and possible ways of their solving.

The senator also said that this meeting was held at Leningrad NPP, which is a pattern of nuclear industry, where all problems are revealed.

The senators also emphasized a necessity of establishing " a new project management system in nuclear power".

The senators suggested to restrict access of construction companies less experienced to competition for construction of nuclear facilities, in particular, to the project of Leningrad NPP-2.

This proposal for correction of competition terms for LNPP unit construction was made in order to restrict the participation of companies not having the corresponding experience in construction of nuclear facilities.

Besides, the senators proposed to enlarge the terms of license for construction of unit from 3 till 5 years.

The recommendations of this meeting will be submitted to the Government.

SOURCE: AtomInfo.Ru

DATE: July 10, 2007

Topics: Russia