The proposed NPP design meets the following requirements:

1. Each power unit and the NPP as a whole meet the present-day national and international safety standards and requirements.

2. The NPP is ecologically sound, and it has a min impact on the environment.

3. Radiological consequences of both design-basis and beyond-the-design-basis accidents will not require urgent evacuation of population of Sosnovy Bor or other communities located in the vicinity of the NPP.

4. The replacing capacities may be constructed concurrently with the operation of the existing power units, and they will not hinder their operation.

5. When developing and constructing new power units to replace the existing ones, the scientific, technical and industrial potential of the North-West Region of Russia may be used to a great extent.

With the aim to utilize, as much as possible, the established infrastructure as well as the wallings and inlet and outlet facilities of LNPP, and to avoid an allotment of additional land space, it is anticipated to site the new power units on the existing industrial territory of LNPP.

Such siting of the replacing capacities will not reduce, during their construction, the operational safety level of the current NPP. Moreover, it will allow - after an appropriate modernization, backfitting and replacement of the depreciated equipment - for a max use of the general technical plant services: switchyards, waterworks, flexible communications, chemical service areas and works, lines, special networks, storage territories, administrative buildings, firehouse, etc. The transportation access routes and hydraulic and power communications are realized in such a way that commissioning of the new units should not require a mandatory decommissioning of the existing ones.

The NPP of a new generation with the MKER-1000 reactor offers promise as a NPP with a channel-type uranium-graphite high-power reactor. From its predecessor, i.e. NPP with the RBMK-1000 reactor, it has inherited all positive features being characteristic of channel-type reactors. At the same time, they differ in that the new one has both a higher level of safety meeting the present-day international requirements, and power-generating reliability and efficiency.

NPP’s with the MKER-1000 reactors are considered as a replacement for those with RBMK-1000 to be decommissioned, upon expiration of the current plant life. They are intended for producing electricity, heat (in the form of steam and hot water), and industrial and medical isotopes.

The physical prototype of MKER-1000 is the RBMK-1000 being currently (1999) constructed for Kursk Unit 5. They differ in that MKER-1000 has a somewhat lesser spacing of the graphite lattice (23.5 cm and 25 cm respectively) in the reactor core as well as a natural injector-intensified circulation.

The volumetric and layout solutions of the main structure for an MKER-1000 unit are determined by the requirements for the process equipment arrangement, with due regard for its overall dimensions and requirements for its installation, operation and maintenance.

The main structure is a monoblock consisting of:

• reactor compartment (RC);

• control and safety systems (C&SS) building;

• turbine hall (TH);

• deaerator stack (DS);

• electrotechnical equipment building (EEB);

• oil service building (OSB).