A cooperation agreement has been signed between the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia in the north-east of the Russian Federation and Russia’s Kurchatov Institute during a meeting between the head of Takutia, Aisen Nikolaev and Kurchatov Institute President Mikhail Kovalchuk. Nikolaev said the document will be an important step in the development of the republic’s energy sector and will open up new prospects for scientific and technological progress in the region.
“The agreement provides for the development of cooperation in the implementation of socially significant projects in the energy sector, fundamental research and applied development in various fields of science and technology,” he noted. “The institute will take part in the development and implementation of a programme for the development of a low-power nuclear power plant, as well as in the training of local personnel for the nuclear energy of the Arctic and the Far East.”
Yakutia and the Kurchatov Institute will develop cooperation in a number of areas, including energy supply to settlements with a decentralised power supply system using Elena-AM nuclear thermoelectric power plants, training of highly qualified specialists in the field of nuclear energy, as well as development and testing of full-cycle hydrogen technologies suited to the conditions of the Far North.
The Kurchatov Institute is the scientific leader or development of the Elena-AM. In 2023 Rosatom’s public procurement website posted documents on construction of the Elena-AM with a contract price for development of the reactor project of RUB 3bn ($39m).
The Elena-AM is a nuclear thermoelectric heat supply station (ATST – Atomnikh Termoelektricheskikh Stantsii Teplosnabzheniya) designed for use in small remote villages with a decentralised energy supply. Primarily it will provide a heat supply to isolated settlements dependent on biofuel. The plant will use some of the generated electricity to cover its own needs, which will allow it to work autonomously without external power.
Heat produced by a small reactor will be converted into electricity directly, using thermoelectric generators. These are solid-state semiconductor devices that convert a temperature difference and heat flow into a useful power source using the Seebeck effect to generate voltage. Although this is less efficient than other generators, the low efficiency is offset by the ability to use some of the generated heat for heating. The nominal thermal power of the planned reactor is 7 MWt and the power of the station is at least 200 kWe. This is enough to heat and illuminate two or three small remote villages. The planned life of the station with a single fuel load is 40 years.
Rosatom specifies that the Elena-AM will be an unattended station without operator intervention and without any connection to external energy sources. All equipment of the reactor installation must be trouble-free for 8,400 hours (350 days), after which two-week maintenance and scheduled preventive repairs are allowed with the replacement of individual components and parts.
The station and reactor must be able to continue to operate during and after an earthquake of magnitude 8. And in the case of nine-point seismic fluctuations, automation must ensure that the station is put into safe mode. Elena-AM must be able to withstand the crash of an airplane weighing 20 tonnes at a speed of 215 m/s without loss of operability. As a design-basis accident, an aircraft weighing up to 200 tonnes at a speed of no more than 100 m/s is taken into account. In this case, the reactor should automatically go into a safe state. The station must maintain uninterrupted operation at ambient temperature between 45ºC in summer and minus 70ºC in winter.
The first Elena-type reactor stations were designed in early 1990. The project was to develop a small NPP to produce heating and energy for small remote inaccessible settlements. The first experimental industrial design of such a station was intended for a small scientific village of the Pacific Oceanological Institute in the area of Elena Bay on the island of Popova. Working drawings of the installation were developed but work was suspended because of economic difficulties.
In July 1991, at a meeting in the Council of Ministers of Yakutia decided to build an Elena-type station in the village of Kyusur but political turmoil put an end to these plans. Similar plans that were being developed for the far east Primorsky Territory in the villages of Krasnaya Yar, Sobolinoe and Yasenevoi and for Khabarovsk Territory in the villages of Chumikan and Neran were also dropped at that time.
