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VIENNA, 18 September (BelTA) – Belarus and the European Commission have agreed on the timeline of the peer review of results of the stress tests of the nuclear power plant located near Ostrovets, BelTA has learned.

Members of the Belarusian delegation met with the European Commission’s Deputy Director General for Energy Thomas Gerassimos during the 61^st session of the IAEA General Conference in Vienna on 18 September. Belarus was represented by Deputy Energy Minister Mikhail Mikhadyuk, Ambassador of Belarus to Austria and permanent representative to international organizations in Vienna Alena Kupchyna, and Olga Lugovskaya, Head of the Nuclear and Radiation Safety Department of the Belarusian Emergencies Ministry (Gosatomnadzor).

The sides talked about when the peer review of results of the stress tests of the Belarusian nuclear power plant will be done and how exactly the work will proceed.

Belarus stress-tested its nuclear power plant in 2016 using European methods and taking into account recommendations based on the European Commission’s and the European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group’s (ENSREG) specifications. As part of the stress testing process the resilience of the Belarusian nuclear power plant as well as its adaptation to extreme impacts was tested. The safe operation of the nuclear power plant in the face of extreme external impacts was evaluated. Consequences of natural phenomena were forecasted such as combinations of floods, extreme weather conditions and external impacts, consequences of the nuclear power plant’s losing safety functions due to the loss of external power. Belarus is about to finish preparing the relevant national report based on results of the stress tests. The report will be published, translated into English, and forwarded to the European Commission.

The Belarusian nuclear power plant is built using the Russian standard Generation III+ design AES-2006 near Ostrovets, Grodno Oblast. The first power-generating unit is scheduled for commissioning in 2019, with the second one to go online in 2020.