Installation begins of overhead crane at BREST-OD-300

Wednesday, 7 May 2025

The double-girder crane has a lifting capacity of 280 tonnes and is being installed at a height of 29.6 metres and the six-month installation "requires a high degree of precision due to the complex architecture of the machine room building and the significant weight and size characteristics of the crane".

The crane is designed to be able to move large items such as turbines, generators and heat exchange equipment.

Alexander Gusev, Deputy General Director of Siberian Chemical Combine, said: "The installation of the overhead crane is an important stage in the construction of the power unit ... the installation of large-sized equipment in the machine room of the BREST-OD-300 reactor facility is scheduled for 2026."

The background

The BREST-OD-300 fast reactor is part of Rosatom's Proryv, or Breakthrough, project to enable a closed nuclear fuel cycle. The 300 MWe unit will be the main facility of the Pilot Demonstration Energy Complex at the Siberian Chemical Combine site. The complex will demonstrate an on-site closed nuclear fuel cycle with a facility for the fabrication/re-fabrication of mixed uranium-plutonium nitride nuclear fuel, as well as a used fuel reprocessing facility.

A progress update in November said that the cooling tower had been built, the walls of the reactor containment building erected and the reactor shaft and the enclosing structure of the reactor vessel have also been installed. The target for the BREST-OD-300 reactor has been to start operation in 2026.

Initial operation of the demonstration unit will be focused on performance and after 10 years or so it will be commercially oriented. The plan has been that if it is successful as a 300 MWe (700 MWt) unit, a 1200 MWe (2800 MWt) version will follow - the BR-1200.