In March this year KONE received an order for the design, engineering and production of the two service elevators for the world\'s first floating nuclear power plant (FNPP), currently under construction at Baltyisky Zavod shipyard in St Petersburg, Russia. It is scheduled for delivery in late 2012. The FNPP will be 144m long and 30m wide and house two 35MW reactors. The 21,500t vessel will cost $274 million.

Russia\'s United Industrial Corporation is building the FNPP at Baltyisky Zavod shipyard for owner Concern Energoatom, Ukraine\'s state-owned nuclear utility. The construction of Russia\'s first floating nuclear power plant started at the Sevmash yard in Severodvinsk in April 2007, but in August 2008 the project was transferred to the Baltiysky Zavod in Saint Petersburg. According to the official version, this was because of the heavy workload of military and defence orders. The unofficial version highlights missed deadlines and inflated costs as the key to this change.

After the completion, this new mobile power station will provide electricity and heat to remote coastal towns as well as plants for desalination of sea water. The location for the FNPP has not yet been revealed, but the basic characteristics of the plant are already known. As stated by the press centre of nuclear energy and industry, two 35MW nuclear reactors will be able to operate for 38 years - three 12-year cycles with the maintenance and modernisation intervals in between. In addition, the plant will also provide heat: 140 gigacalories per hour, which is sufficient for lighting and heating a small town. In the Far North, where to deliver fuel oil or diesel fuel is expensive, and to pull power lines is still difficult due to permafrost, the floating nuclear power plant can be a relatively inexpensive and reliable source of energy.

Russia has extensive experience with nuclear-propelled submarines and icebreakers, and the reactors on the FNPP will be similar to ones used by the icebreakers. It is the experience of operation of icebreakers that Rosatom experts cite when they talk about the safety of the floating nuclear power plant.

KONE Marine is currently developing the solutions for the two elevators located in an accommodation and in the reactor sections of the FNPP. This demanding project requires highly competent marine engineers. One more challenge is to receive certification from the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping. As KONE Marine elevators have already been approved by such international classification societies as DNV, ABS, LR, BV, GL and RINA, the approval of the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping will be a matter of formality.