The concept of extending the service life of the VVER-440-based power units at the Novovoronezh nuclear power plant

Basic statements of the Concept of Extending the Service Life of the VVER-440-Based Power Units at the Novovoronezh NPP beyond 45 years are considered. This topic is raised in connection with the fact that that in December 2016 and in December 2017 the extended service lives of Units 3 and 4 at this NPP will expire. The adopted concept of repeatedly extending the service life of the Novovoronezh NPP Unit 4 implies fitting the power unit with additional reactor core cooling systems with a view to extend the (ultimate) design-basis accidents (which have hitherto been adopted to be a loss of coolant accident involving a leak of reactor coolant through a break with a nominal diameter of 100 mm) to a reactor coolant leak equivalent to rupture of the main reactor coolant pipeline. The modified Unit 4 will also use the safety systems of Unit 3 that is going to be decommissioned. Preliminary calculated assessments of the new design-basis accident scenario involving rupture of the reactor coolant pipeline in Unit 4 fitted with a new configuration of safety systems confirmed the correctness of the adopted concept of repeatedly extending the service life of Unit 4.