Russia will produce the first power from its new Leningrad Phase 2 nuclear power plant, west of St Petersburg, in 2015 and will connect the 70-billion rubles plant to the grid in 2016, plant manager Yuri Galanchuk said on Wednesday.

“The project has only gone 10% over its budget and about 70% of the allocated total sum has already been spent,” he said during a media site visit to the plant.

Construction of the 4 800 MW plant, which would eventually replace the original 4 000 MW Leningrad plant commissioned in 1975, started in 2009. Galanchuk reported that construction of the first two of four 1 200 MW units was going well. The construction of units three and four would start next year, with about 1-billion rubles to be spent on the startup of the project.

The plant would incorporate various safety systems, including a core melt trap or core catcher to collect fuel and minimise consequences brought on by accidents or weather conditions.

The on-site safety systems would also incorporate cooling pools to store spent fuel from the water-cooled, water-moderated power (VVER) reactors. Galanchuk noted that the pools were being designed to withstand natural disasters. Each pool would have open and closed compartments, which allowed a sufficient amount of water to be stored in its closed compartments for cooling purposes in, the event of a tornado for instance.

The spent fuel storage, or pools, would incorporate a facility for nuclear waste treatment, and use of removable fuel isolation would reduce the quantity of waste and minimise leakages.

The cooling pools would be supplied with water from the Gulf of Finland, as well as rainwater from a specialised water capturing and cleaning system.

Meanwhile, four safety trains were also being constructed that would enable a total shutdown of the plant if required.

The nuclear plant would have a life of 50 years, while its VVER reactors, which would have a rotation speed of 3 000 rpm, would have a life of 60 years.