Training of El-Dabaa NPP Personnel Started at Rosatom Technical Academy
In early September, the first groups of El-Dabaa NPP specialists proceeded to training at the St. Petersburg branch of the Technical Academy. The training was conducted within the contract package for construction of the first nuclear power plant in the Arab Republic of Egypt.
The grand opening of the course was attended by Mohamed Ramadan, deputy chairman of the board of directors for the operation and maintenance of the Egyptian Nuclear Power Plants Authority (NPPA); Vladimir Artisyuk, deputy CEO of Rosatom State Corporation; Valeriy Karezin, director of educational projects at Rosatom; Grigoriy Sosnin, vice president and project director of El-Dabaa NPP; Dmitriy Pashevich, first deputy general director of Rusatom Service JSC; Yuriy Seleznyov, rector of Rosatom Technical Academy. During the event, the participants got acquainted with the training and accommodation campuses of trainees, visited the first lesson held in Russian, discussed the issues of training of the El-Dabaa NPP personnel.
Training programme for personnel of the nuclear power plant under construction in Egypt will begin with a course in Russian, which the trainees are to study for six months. 465 Egyptian students are to master the course. After that, the Egyptian specialists will proceed to theoretical training on the materials of the reference nuclear power plant, undergo on-the-job training and internships at Leningrad NPP-2 and at the workplaces. In total, by 2028, Rosatom State Corporation will train about 1700 specialists within the project. Training will be held on the premises of Rosatom Technical Academy in Russia and NPP Training Center in Egypt.
“We appreciate Rosatom’s unique comprehensive solution on developing nuclear technologies in our country. We have ambitious projects in this field,” Mohamed Ramadan, deputy chairman of the board of directors for the operation and maintenance of the Egyptian Nuclear Power Plants Authority (NPPA) and director general of El-Dabaa NPP project management, says. “We realize that training two thousand highly qualified specialists and ensuring their internships at an operating reference NPP requires substantial resources. A step towards this partnership was made over a decade ago, when the first group of Egyptian specialists came to Technical Academy (back then it was called Central Institute for Continuing Education) to receive their training. It was a key moment for both parties that symbolized our cooperation going to a positive direction.”
“Egypt is a developed technological country that can become a leader of the continent by solving a global electric power task together with Russia,” Vladimir Artisyuk, deputy CEO of Rosatom State Corporation, emphasized. “There are a lot of young people here, who strive to find a good job in the future, and the nation's government actively explores the young people's agenda at international level. Since 2017, Egypt has held annual international youth forums, where UN top management have participated, and IAEA top management have engaged since 2019. Hence, we see high-profile national projects in Egypt, for instance, in electric power industry, including the nuclear industry. The nation has a potential for providing energy for Africa. Summing up these trends, we can say that Egypt has a capacity to contribute to global agenda of UN sustainable development in both inexpensive energy accessibility and curbing green-house gases emission.”
Grigoriy Sosnin, vice president and project director of El-Dabaa NPP, mentioned the importance of timely training of the personnel of the power plant under construction. “This is what we have been waiting for so long. A renowned Russian warlord Aleksandr Suvorov once said that knowledge is light, while ignorance is darkness. Russia will be a second homeland for Egyptian students, and nuclear knowledge can bring light to your houses,” he said.
According to Yuriy Seleznyov, rector of Rosatom Technical Academy, in order to enhance client’s personnel training quality, the Saint-Petersburg branch has additional equipment in training rooms and upgraded IT infrastructure. To hold training, a pool of instructors is gathered to include experienced operators who worked at nuclear plants for years and young specialists with fluent English who underwent comprehensive technical training and NPP internship. By the end of the year, the site will have analytical simulator introduced into operation. Besides, within the investment project on Technical Academy development, housing conditions for students were improved regarding an Arab country cultural specifics.
Rosatom State Corporation pays special attention to development of Russian-Egyptian cooperation at a university level. For example, joint BA and MA educational programs of MEPhI, Tomsk Polytechnic University and Egyptian higher education establishments are being implemented. Moreover, educators of Cairo, Alexandria, and Ain Shams involved in nuclear industry personnel training have participated in advanced Train-The-Trainers courses by Rosatom Technical Academy since 2018.
“Today is an extraordinary day for the Egyptian students — they become a part of a nuclear energy community, and, in return, we are to do our best to help them succeed,” Dmitry Pashevich, first deputy general director of Rusatom Service JSC, said.
Reference:
El-Dabaa NPP, the first nuclear plant in Egypt, will be constructed in the city of El-Dabaa, Matrouh Governorate, on the Mideterranian sea shore, around 300 km to the north-west of Cairo. Design and construction of the project are carried out by Rosatom State Corporation Engineering Division.
The NPP will comprise 4 Power Units of 1200 MW each with the 3+ generation VVER-1200 reactors (water-water energy reactor). This state-of-the-art technology already has references and successfully works. Russia has four units with this generation reactors: 2 reactors at Novovoronezh NPP site, and 2 reactors at Leningrad NPP site. Outside Russia, a VVER-1200 power unit was connected to the grid in Belarusian NPP.
NPP construction is carried out within the contract package that came into force of December 11, 2017. According to the contract obligations, the Russian party is to build a station, supply Russian nuclear fuel for the whole life cycle of the power plant, as well as render help in personnel training and support the plant work and maintenance during the first ten years of its operation to the Egyptian partners. Within another agreement, the Russian party will build a special storage where it will place containers for keeping spent nuclear fuel.
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Rusatom Service JSC is a part of the electric power division of the Rosatom State Corporation. The company provides a full range of services and supplies, required for operation and repair, to foreign nuclear power plants with VVER. The company carries activities in virtually all countries with operating VVER nuclear power plants outside Russia.
Rusatom Service holds leading positions in the markets of China, Bulgaria, and Armenia and acts as a general contractor of works on lifetime extension, scheduled preventive maintenance and upgrade of the equipment at nuclear power plants with VVER.