The Finland-based company Fennovoima Oy has recently sent its instructors to visit the Training Center of the Leningrad NPP, to learn about the training procedure in place for the operations personnel working at their new VVER-1200 reactors.
“We talked about how the Training Center was structured, how much theoretical and practical information the training encompassed, about the facilities and resources utilized by the Center etc. There is a certain difference between Russia and Finland in the approaches taken towards training of operations personnel; however, we have found the experience of our Russian colleagues to be most useful. We may employ some of these practices and staff training methods at the Hanhikivi Plant, since its main power unit will be based on the same design as the new units in place at the Leningrad Plant,” said Vaclav Vejborny, Instructor at Fennovoima Oy.
His college Kari Leinonen said: “We found the full-scale training simulator for operations personnel to be particularly interesting as it allows the staff to polish their skills and understanding of how to control the power units, without risk. The interface of the simulator is simple and straightforward and the color-coded indicators are easy to understand. We will bear these things in mind when building our own training simulator at the Hanhikivi NPP.”
The Director of the Department for Nuclear Power Plant Operations Personnel Training for RAOS Project Oy, Viktoria Zhuravleva, explained that their Finnish partners were primarily interested in the training for operations personnel and that a pilot probation program at the Leningrad Plant was now in discussion. “We are keen to continue our cooperation with the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant, focusing on the particular aspects of staff training,” she said.
Finland is one of many countries, which successfully utilize or plan to utilize Russian energy-generating units based on VVER reactors. Among them are Belorussia, Turkey, Bangladesh and many other countries. ROSATOM not only constructs the safest and most reliable turnkey power units for these countries, it also provides corporate assistance in establishing the infrastructure, which includes training for new personnel at these foreign power plants. In addition to our ready-made solutions, we also offer personnel training programs adjusted to our clients’ specific requirements,” said Julia Nazarova, Director of the Human Resource Project Office for Global Operations of Rosenergoatom.
