Reactor units for power supply to the Russian Arctic regions: Priority assessment of nuclear energy sources

Under conditions of competitiveness of small nuclear power plants (SNPP) and feasibility of their use to supply power to remote and inaccessible regions the competition occurs between nuclear energy sources, which is caused by a wide range of proposals for solving the problem of power supply to different consumers in the decentralized area of the Russian Arctic power complex. The paper suggests a methodological approach for expert assessment of the priority of small power reactor units based on the application of the point system. The priority types of the reactor units have been determined based on evaluation of the unit's conformity to the following criteria: the level of referentiality and readiness degree of reactor units to implementation; duration of the fuel cycle, which largely determines an autonomy level of the nuclear energy source; the possibility of creating a modular block structure of SNPP; the maximum weight of a transported single equipment for the reactor unit; service life of the main equipment. Within the proposed methodological approach the authors have performed a preliminary ranking of the reactor units according to various criteria, which allows quantitatively determining relative difference and priority of the small nuclear power plants projects aimed at energy supply to the Russian Arctic. To assess the sensitivity of the ranking results to the parameters of the point system the authors have observed the five-point and ten-point scales under variations of importance (weights) of different criteria. The paper presents the results of preliminary ranking, which have allowed distinguishing the following types of the reactor units in order of their priority: ABV-6E (ABV-6M), "Uniterm" and SVBR-10 in the energy range up to 20 MW; RITM-200 (RITM-200M), KLT-40S and SVBR-100 in the energy range above 20 MW