The world's first floating nuclear power plant (FNPP), Akademik Lomonosov, arrived in Murmansk in the northwest of Russia for fuel loading, according to Russia's State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom on Saturday.
After the nuclear fuel loading process is completed in which fuel will be loaded into the powership's reactors in the coming months, the Akademik Lomonosov will be towed to Pevek in Chukotka in Russia's far east where it will be grid connected in 2019.
The FNPP will replace a coal-fired power plant and the aging Bilibino nuclear power plant to supply over 50,000 people with electricity.
'Akademic Lomonosov is a first-of-a-kind, reference project for mobile medium capacity range nuclear power units, a product we expect to be in growing demand in the coming years,' Rosatom Director General Alexey Likhachev was quoted as saying.The Lomonosov powership sailed over 4,000 kilometers and travelled four seas; Baltic, Northern, Norwegian and Barents on the way to Murmansk.
All the necessary construction works to create an onshore infrastructure are underway in Pevek.
By Huseyin Erdogan
Anadolu Agency
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