The four-decker vessel, painted in the colours of the Russian national flag, has left the pier of Rosatomflot, with two tugboats set to tow it to Chukotka's Pevek port.
Therefore, the project for creating a floating thermal NPP has entered its final stage. There are plans to replicate the experience in other regions, including abroad. In the spring of this year, all the tests that confirmed the design indicators of the floating power unit were completed.
According to expert estimates, Akademik Lomonosov is expected to arrive in Pevek in the second half of September.
Construction of coastal and hydraulic structures for the floating NPP, as well as of infrastructure for electricity transmission to local distributors, is expected to be completed in Pevek by the end of the year. The NPP is expected to start working in December and replace retired capacities of Bilibino NPP and Chaunskaya central heating and power plant.
Akademik Lomonosov has been designed to supply electricity to some of Russia's hardly accessible areas in the Extreme North and the Far East, and off-shore oil and gas platforms.
Akademik Lomonosov is the flagship of Russia's Project 20870 on mobile transportable power units of low power. The unit is equipped with two KLT-40S reactor units, each capable of generating 35 megawatt of power, which is enough to provide electricity to a town with a population of around 100,000 people. The vessel is around 140-meter (131.2-feet) long and 30-meter wide, with its displacement exceeding 20,000 tonnes and its lifespan estimated at 40 years.