Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Yury Ivanovich Borisovon have jointly inaugurated the construction of Rooppur nuclear power plant’s second reactor unit.
Both the leaders poured concrete at an event in Pabna, on Saturday, marking the first concrete-pouring of the second unit of the power plant, reports UNB.
The construction of the first reactor unit began on November 30, 2017.
Currently, the auxiliary reactor building’s walls are being constructed, and its reactor building and foundation slab are being reinforced. Soil stabilization work for the evaporative cooling tower, and others, has already commenced.
Rooppur’s two units – 1,200 MWe VVER each – are to be built adhering to their Russian design—prioritising safety measures. The VVER-1,200 reactor’s design has already been built at Novovoronezh Nuclear Power Plant II in Russia.
Unit-1 is scheduled to be commissioned in 2023, while the commissioning of the second unit is slated for 2024—the two should to produce 2,400MW of electricity.
In February 2011, Russia’s Rosatom signed an agreement with the Bangladesh government to build the nuclear power plant. The initial contract for the project, worth $12.65 billion, was inked in December, 2015.
Rooppur plant is being constructed according to the Russia-Bangladesh Intergovernmental Agreement on Cooperation in the Area of Nuclear Power Plant Construction in the Territory of Bangladesh, signed on November 2, 2011.
On December 25, 2015, the General Contract for designing, constructing and commissioning 2 NPP power units, each of 1200MW capacity and based on VVER-reactors, was signed in Dhaka.