How the Paks expansion will proceed this year

Our newspaper regularly reports on the Paks II mega-investment, providing details of the giant project through interviews and professional articles. Now there is more news about the construction of the nuclear power plant: on 6 February, Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, provided information to the press during a break in the government meeting held in Sopronbánya.

The Minister said, among other things, that he had recently had a telephone conversation with Alexei Likhachov, CEO of the Russian Roszatom, with whom he reviewed the status of the Paks expansion, as is regularly done, in order to ensure that the investment can be handed over as soon as possible.

In this regard, he announced that construction is proceeding steadily and without disruption, with the 2.7-kilometre partition wall was completed at the end of last year, and now soil stabilisation work is underway, which is very important for the safety of the future power plant.

This will be completed by the middle of next year, with 70,000 piles to be placed in the ground at varying depths, of which three thousand have been installed so far.

Tests to pour the first concrete will start this month

At the same time, work has also started on the construction of the facilities needed to pour the so-called first concrete.

"The first concrete is always the watershed in the construction of a nuclear power plant. In fact, from that point on, the project enters, shall we say, an even more meaningful phase"

- said.

"The current schedule looks like we will be able to keep to the first concrete pour by the end of this year, and we will be able to start the necessary tests as early as February"

- he said.

The Minister said that the National Atomic Energy Authority had already issued all the necessary permits for the works under way and those about to be carried out. "And my colleagues are constantly working on submitting new and additional licence applications," he said. He also said that the recent adoption by Parliament of an amendment to the Nuclear Safety Act, which has made the licensing process much simpler, is a great help in this regard, allowing the project to proceed faster than before while taking maximum account of safety requirements.

Production of the reactor vessel will start in the spring

He announced that production of the reactor vessel, one of the so-called long lead time elements, will start sometime in the spring, probably in April, and the procurement of the raw materials is already underway, while the crucial melt trap will be ready by April or May.

Szijjártó stressed that the Paks expansion will double the current nuclear capacity of Hungary. He said that with the construction of the two new reactor units, the share of nuclear energy in Hungary's electricity supply will rise to about 70 percent, and if the current and planned solar capacities are added, Hungary will be very close to self-sufficiency.

Significant reduction in the country's carbon dioxide emissions

He underlined that the Paks expansion will reduce the import of natural gas by 3-3.5 billion cubic metres per year, and thus the country will be much less exposed to the vicissitudes, price increases and unreasonable changes of the international energy market. In addition, it will also reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 17 million tonnes, which will contribute significantly to environmental efforts," he stressed.

Finally, he also said that Alexei Likhachev will visit our country again soon to review the status of the process and related legal issues.