RUTA | POWER PLANT DESIGN
RUTA: a heating solution for Finland?
Roman Polin, Yuri Baranaev, Alexander Glebov and Irina Moskovchenko examine the prospects for using a low-capacity Russian reactor design for nuclear heat plants in Finland
Roman Polin is a project manager at Finland-based Scandia Protech Oy. Yuri Baranaev, Alexander Glebov and Irina Moskovchenko are researchers at Russia’s Institute for Physics and Power Engineering.
ACCORDING TO THE FINNISH ENERGY Association, 81TWh of electricity and 34.3TWh of heat was supplied to consumers in 2020. The share of environmentally friendly electricity production (solar, wind, hydroelectric and nuclear power plants) was 69.8%, but, there is no environmentally friendly thermal energy supply in the heat supply sector. Could nuclear be considered to provide heat to medium
and large cities in Finland? According to the preliminary conclusion of the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK), such a so-called district heating nuclear plant (DHNP) may be located relatively close to habitation. Given the global and domestic experience in the creation and operation of pool-type reactors in Russia, a modification of the reactor plant for heat supply systems has been developed, called RUTA (Reactor Plant for Heat Supply with Atmospheric Pressure in the Primary Circuit).
RUTA has the safety features of pool-type reactors with
inherent and passive safety properties that allow them to be sited within settlements. The RUTA concept developed by IPPE and NIKIET could be being used in Finland in this way. This report presents the main characteristics of such a
concept based on a 70MW RUTA, and necessary cooperation between Finnish and Russian experts. Finland’s Ministry for Economical Affairs and Employment
began to consider the conditions needed to deploy small modular reactors (SMRs) in September 2019. By February 2020 it had produced an initial document and on 4 October 2020 STUK announced plans for an update to legislation that would allow for the use of SMR technologies. That opened the door to using RUTA for district heating to replace the fossil fuel boiler plants currently in use. U
Above: Helsinki Hanasaari plant is kept as a backup source for district heating
www.neimagazine.com | October 2021 | 39
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53
