The most advanced of the Russian SMR designs is KLT-40S. A pilot barge-mounted plant with the two KLT-40S reactors named ‘Akademik Lomonosov’ has been licensed in the Russian Federation and is at the final stages of of construction (Kessides and Kuznetsov, 2012). The plan is to deploy it in a bay near the city of Pevek in the Chukotka region (north Russia) in 2016. Stress tests for the plant have been performed after the Fukushima Daiichi accident in Japan, which confirmed safety of the barge — mounted plant in its targeted deployment location. Subject to successful operation of the Akademik Lomonosov, five or seven similar plants of the same type may be deployed in the north and east regions of Russia. A number of customers in Russia have already confirmed their intention to host such plants.

Regarding the ABV reactor, its previous design version with a shorter core lifetime was licensed many years ago and work is in progress to develop and qualify a new core design with 12 years of continuous operation between refuelings. No decision has been made regarding the construction, but possible locations of barge-mounted plants with the twin ABV reactors may include deltas of the rivers or lakes in the north and east of Russia. Land-based ABV plants are also being considered (Sozonyuk, 2011).

For the RITM-200 design has been completed and approved by the State Atomic Energy Corporation ‘Rosatom’ by 2012 (Veshnyakov, 2011). Deployment of a new-generation ice-breaker with the twin RITM-200 units is scheduled for 2017. After deployment and operation of the ice-breaker the RITM-200 reactors could be considered for new generations of barge-mounted and land-based NPPs.

Detailed design development is in progress for the lead-bismuth cooled SVBR — 100. Decision has been made on the construction of a single-module prototype of this reactor at the site of the ‘State Scientific Centre — NIIAR’ in Dimitrovgrad (Russia) in 2017. Subject to successful operation of the prototype, deployment of single — or multi-module plants with SVBR-100 reactors could be considered. Development of SVBR-100 is indicated as a priority in the Russian Federal Program ‘Nuclear power technologies of new generation for the period 2010-2015 and for the future up to 2020’, emplaced by the RF Government Order No. 50.

Regarding UNITHERM, the deployment targets are not yet defined, although negotiations have been in progress for some time with potential customers in the Russian Yakutia region. The design stage is early conceptual design and the targeted customers are small settlements in the continental Y akutia and Siberia.

SHELF is at the earliest design stages and its deployment prospects are conditioned by the progress of the projects of gas recovery from the gas condensate deposits and oil mining from the bottom of the Arctic seas (IAEA, 2012c). No deployment date is currently available.

Table 17.7 gives the available designers’ data on the absolute overnight capital costs, on specific overnight capital costs and on levelized unit electricity costs of energy products (LUEC) for some of the SMRs presented in this chapter. For comparison, similar data for the state-of-the-art large plant with the VVER reactor (twin unit) is given.

As can be seen from Table 17.7, the specific overnight capital costs and the LUEC for SMRs are higher than for a large PWR (VVER-1150). However, they are well below the current tariffs for electricity in targeted locations (see Section 17.1). The absolute overnight capital costs, are always much smaller for SMRs than for an NPP with a large reactor (see Table 17.7).

All Russian SMRs are being designed to be licensed and deployed first in their country of origin — the Russian Federation — where they could cater to a variety of energy needs, specifically, in remote areas where electricity tariffs are currently much higher than on the mainland. In the case of success, after several years of operation at rated capacity factors, some of them could be considered for deployment in other countries. Specifically, barge-mounted plants could be offered to a number of other countries for the purposes of seawater desalination (to be performed by a desalination plant located on a separate barge) (Sozonyuk, 2011).

17.2 Future trends

In Russia, SMRs are not considered as possible competitors to large reactors. The overall idea is to have reactors of different capacities within a broad power range to cater to the needs of a variety of potential customers in the diverse energy demand, siting, transportation and climatic conditions throughout the country; see Section 17.1. This is at least, true for SMRs based on PWR technologies.

With more notable progress observed for barge-mounted plants, the first-of-a — kind plant Akademik Lomonosov with the two KLT-40S reactors is deemed to demonstrate the validity of technical solutions implemented in a barge-mounted NPP design concept and pave a way to future generations of such plants with newer, more advanced reactors. Such reactors may include future modifications of the RITM — 200, originally designed as an ice-breaker reactor, or a medium-sized VBER-300 of 300 MW(e) (Sozonyuk, 2011). For smaller barge-mounted plants, such as that with the twin ABV units, future options to install very small lead-bismuth-cooled reactors, e. g., SVBR-10 of 10 MW(e) (IAEA, 2010), are being considered.

Table 17.7 Cost data for SMRs SMR (Country) Unit power, MW(e) Overnight capital cost, US$ billion Overnight capital cost, US$/kW(e) LUEC US$ cent/ kW h, at a 5% discount rate Levelized heat cost US$/Gcal Levelized desalinated water cost US$ cent/m3 Russian PWR-type SMRs KLT-40S 2 X 35 0.259-0.294 3700-4200 4.9-5.3 21-23 85-95 ABV 2 X 8.5 0.155 9100 <12 <45 <160 RITM-200 2 X 50 0.330-0.370 3300-3700 n/a n/a n/a IEA/NEA projections for large LWRs, data taken from p. 59 of IEA/NEA-OECD (2010) VVER-1150 2 X 1070 6.276 2933 4.35 n/a n/a Sources: Based on data from pp. 68 and p. 170 of Current Status, Technical Feasibility and Economics of Small Nuclear Reactors (NEA-OECD, 2011); Kessides and Kuznetsov (2012) and IEA/NEA-OECD (2010).

Regarding ice-breaker reactors, development of a multi-purpose ice-breaker with the twin RITM-200 units will be followed by a development of the advanced, more powerful RITM series reactor for a larger nuclear ice-breaker of the leader class (Sozonyuk, 2011). SVBR-100 is one of the three fast reactor projects included in the Russian Federal Program ‘Nuclear power technologies of new generation for the period 2010-2015 and for the future up to 2020’ emplaced by the RF Government Order No. 50. The other two are commercial sodium-cooled fast reactor BN-1200 and lead-cooled fast reactor BREST-1200, both of 1200 MW(e), with BREST-1200 being preceded by a smaller prototype BREST-300 of 300 MW(e). By and around 2020, depending on the progress manifested by each of the three projects, a strategic decision on deployment targets for the selected fast reactor designs in the Russian Federation will be taken. In case of success, the SVBR-100 may be furthered for use within larger multi-module plants, the conceptual proposals for which are highlighted in IAEA (2007). Those could be 4 or even 16-module plants of the overall capacity as high as 1600 MW(e) and with a variety of co-generation options.

17.3 Conclusion

Owing to multi-year national experience in design, deployment and operation of marine propulsion reactors, including the reactors of nuclear ice-breakers, the Russian Federation is progressing well toward deployment of pilot SMRs of the pressurized — water type (for a barge-mounted NPP) and of the lead-bismuth-cooled type (with fast neutron spectrum). The deployments are expected before the end of the present decade. R&D on several other concepts is in progress along the technology lines mentioned above, as well as for high-temperature gas-cooled reactors.

In the Russian Federation small reactors are not viewed as direct competitors to large reactors. For small reactors, targeted are particular niche markets where electricity costs are high, where co-generation, long refueling interval or plant relocatability are assets, where transportation routes are seasonal, where the demand is limited and siting conditions are specific (i. e., no water in winter due to deep freezing of rivers or other water reservoirs). The layout of the country offers a variety of niche opportunities for such reactors in areas where tariffs for electricity are much higher than in the rest of the country. Export deployment of the Russian SMRs based NPPs will be considered after they have been deployed domestically and demonstrated the effectiveness of their technologies.