Data for year Russia is one of the few countries without a populist energy policy favouring wind and solar generation; the priority is unashamedly nuclear. Russia's first nuclear power plant, and the first in the world to produce electricity in , was the 5 MWe Obninsk reactor.
Russia's first two commercial-scale nuclear power plants started up in , then in the first of today's production models were commissioned. By the mids Russia had 25 power reactors in operation, but the nuclear industry was beset by problems. The Chernobyl accident led to a resolution of these, as outlined in the Appendix of the information page on Russia's Nuclear Fuel Cycle. Between the Chernobyl accident and the mids, only one nuclear power station was commissioned in Russia, the four-unit Balakovo, with unit 3 being added to Smolensk.
Economic reforms following the collapse of the Soviet Union meant an acute shortage of funds for nuclear developments, and a number of projects were stalled.
But by the late s exports of reactors to Iran, China and India were negotiated and Russia's stalled domestic construction programme was revived as far as funds allowed. Around , nuclear construction revived and Rostov 1 also known as Volgodonsk 1 , the first of the delayed units, started up in , joining 21 GWe already on the grid. It was followed by Kalinin 3 in , Rostov 2 in and Kalinin 4 in By the government's resolve to develop nuclear power had firmed and there were projections of adding GWe per year to in Russia as well as exporting plants to meet world demand for some GWe of new nuclear capacity in that timeframe.
In the CEO of Rosatom said that the government would end state support for the construction of new nuclear units in , and so Rosatom must learn to earn money on its own, primarily via commercial nuclear energy projects in the international market. He said that Rosatom had come from being a consortium of unprofitable, separately-run businesses a decade ago to a vertically-integrated state corporation with improved strategies and financial performance, thanks in part to a "large-scale" programme of state funding.
