Belarus to build third unit at nuclear power plant

According to the official Belta news service, the decision was taken at a meeting on Friday, hosted by President Alexander Lukashenko. The government has stressed the need for new capacity and studies have been carried out to decide whether that will be in the form of a new unit at the country's first nuclear power plant, in Ostrovets, or at a new site in the east of the country.

Lukashenko was quoted by Belta as saying "nuclear power is a miracle for Belarus". He noted that the population of Ostrovets had nearly doubled to 15,000 people with many high quality jobs and "graduates from energy faculties dream of getting a job there".

He said that the option of building a third unit at the existing plant had the benefits of an already approved site as well as a skilled workforce and the necessary social infrastructure: "The ground conditions there have already been thoroughly studied. There is no need for any additional surveys."

Although the option of building a new nuclear plant would cost more, it had the benefits that it could "transform the eastern region from a backwater into a highly developed territory of Belarus. This means new jobs, investment, innovative projects, and new technologies", he said.

Vice Premier Viktor Karankevich said the decision to go ahead with the third unit at Ostrovets would also be matched by work to survey potential sites in Mogilev Oblast, in the east of the country, with the possibility of more new capacity in that region if energy demands supports it.

The Belarus nuclear power plant has two VVER-1200 reactors and is located in Ostrovets in the Grodno region in the northwest of the country. A general contract for the construction was signed with Russia's Rosatom in 2011, with first concrete on the first unit in November 2013. Construction of unit 2 began in May 2014. The first power unit was connected to the grid in November 2020, with the second unit put into commercial operation in November 2023. More than a quarter of Belarus's electricity is now generated by nuclear.

Rosatom reported that its Director General Alexey Likhachev held talks on Thursday with Alexander Turchin, Prime Minister of Belarus at which "the two sides discussed in detail possible options for the further development of Belarus's nuclear energy sector".