Visaginas NPP

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Visaginas NPP is a regional project intended to provide electricity for Lithuania instead of closed Ignalina NPP. As of July 2013, there are 3 regional partners - Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia involved in the project, in addition to strategic investor GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy. In 2012, Lithuanian citizens voted against building a new NPP in the country. However, the talks about building the plant continue.

The city of Visaginas is situated in the northeast of Lithuania, 150 km from Vilnius and 8 km from the border with Latvia. It was founded in 1975 as Sniečkus for the workers of the Ignalina NPP on the shores of Lake Visaginas. Four villages had been demolished for that workers' town, with the biggest one of them known as Visaginas.[1]

Proposals to construct a new NPP at the old Ignalina NPP site, that had been closed in accordance with Lithuania's accession agreement to the EU[2] at the end of 2009, have been made since 2007[3]. First discussions regarding new reactors started already in the 1990s and were continued in the 2000s[2]. In October 2011, the Lithuanian government informed the European Union about their construction plans[4].

The Visaginas Nuclear Plant Company has been set up by electricity companies of Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, and Poland on July 30, 2008 to be responsible for the construction of the new NPP. Poland later withdrew from the project. It is supposed to be a 1,300 MW boiling water reactor[4] while earlier a maximum capacity of up to 3,400 MW distributed over two reactors had been announced[2]. On July 14, 2011[4] the GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy has been selected as a strategic investor of the project.[3] The estimated construction costs is 5 billion Euros[2]. However, given interest, inflation and expenses caused by changes in the value of investments it is likely that the costs will be 6.8 billion Euros [5].

On October 14th, 2012, 62,6 percent of Lithuanian citizens, who attended a nation-wide consultative referendum, voted "No" on a statement “I am in favor of constructing a new nuclear power plant in the Republic of Lithuania”. After that, Lithuanian politicians were trying to downplay the results of the referendum, questioning the legal consequences of the referendum. The results of the referendum are legally binding according to the Law on Referendum [6]. Following the referendum, a work group was formed to analyze the project and to propose the most cost-optimal and consumer friendly model of Lithuanian energy supply system.

In 2020 the NPP is supposed to be ready to be connected to the grid[2].

  • An international anti-nuclear conference focusing on the new NPP construction plans of Lithuania, Belarus and Kaliningrad (Russia) took place in Vilnius (LT) on December 6-8, 2011


Media coverage


Further information resources


  1. ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Visaginas&oldid=445363068 as at October 15, 2011
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Visaginas_Nuclear_Power_Plant&oldid=447180300 as at October 15, 2011
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ignalina_Nuclear_Power_Plant&oldid=451980296 as at October 15, 2011
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 http://www.nuklearforum.ch/ebarticle.php?art_id=de-131842098266&id=de-116487550462--p-1 as at October 15, 2011
  5. ↑ http://www.diena.lv/bizness/finanses/visaginas-aes-buvnieciba-sadardzinas-13953556.
  6. ↑ http://www.gyva.lt/articles/view/279
  7. ↑ composition by Bernd Ebeling, http://contratom.de as at August 29, 2012
    source: World Nuclear Industrial Status Report 2012, Schneider, M. et al.; Nuclear Power Reactors in the World, IAEA, Vienna, 2008

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