On this date: How the first nuclear power plant in the world became operational. Know all about it

June 27, 1954, marked the beginning of the nuclear energetics history. The Soviet Union achieved a milestone in energy production, by launching the world's first nuclear power plant at Obninsk. This center produced 5,000 kilowatts of electricity through the use of enriched uranium, setting the stage for nuclear energy generation in peacetime in the nation. Obninsk Atomic Power Plant– world's first atomic power plant which symbolised the peaceful application of nuclear science, especially during the Cold War years, completed 60 years in 2024. The plant is situated in the village of Pyatkino in Obninsk town, approximately 150 kms from Moscow, Russia.

It was officially opened on June 26, 1954. India's then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, who supported India's peaceful exploitation of nuke energy strong-voiced, had also visited the Obninsk plant. Igor Kurchatov who is famously regarded as "the father of the Soviet Atomic Weapons Programme", played a key role in the establishment of this plant.

The 5 MW facility was previously used by the town to generate electricity. However, with the progress in nuclear technology not only of Russia, but also internationally, the reactor became uneconomical and hence it was closed down in 2002. Even though the plant was running well, its primary objective was to utilise it for experimental work such as research work in medicine and space.

After Obninsk, the Soviets quickly developed their nuclear capabilities, with the Siberian atomic power station at Novosibirsk opening in 1958 and with a capacity more than one hundred times greater. The development of nuclear energy was initially linked to military goals, for the Soviet Union aimed to demonstrate its technological superiority and excellence after it successfully tested its first atomic bomb in 1949. But with the commissioning of the Obninsk plant, the attention then turned towards peaceful uses of nuclear energy, which would be pivotal in serving the country's energy needs.

Though visions of swift expansion existed, economic stress created a deceleration of new building by the late 1950s, although the Soviet Union remained active in developing different reactor types and uses of atomic power throughout the following decades. Though the nuclear project was intended to represent achievement and enhance people's lives, it also came with safety and environmental issues, concerns that increased after incidents such as the Chernobyl disaster.

During WWII the Soviet Union started to develop the nuclear weapons. The process of its creation was headed by scholar physician, academic IV Kurchatov. In 1943 he established a Moscow research center, Laboratory N 2, which further was restructured into the Nuclear Energy Institute. In 1948, a plutonium plant with several industry reactors was constructed, in August 1949 the first Soviet nuclear bomb was detonated. When the beneficiated uranium production was planned and created on an industrial scale, the debates of issues and directions of energetic nuclear reactors construction for further use in transport and electric power and heat extraction started. On Kurchatov's order the Russian doctors EL Feinberg and NA Dollegeal began working on designing the nuclear power plant reactor.

Apart from energy production, the Obninskoye nuclear power plant reactor was also a base for test studies and isotopes production for medicine requirements. The operation experience of the first experimental nuclear power plant fully confirmed the correctness of engineering solutions taken by the masters of nuclear industry that allowed initiating a large-scale program of nuclear power plants construction in the Soviet Union.

In May 1954, the reactor was commissioned and in June of the same year Obninskoye nuclear power generated its very first industry current breaking the path of utilising the nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Obninskoye nuclear power plant had been successfully functioning for nearly 48 years.

On April 29, 2002 at 11:31am, Moscow time the first world nuclear power plant reactor in Obninskoye was shut down. The plant was shut down for economic reasons solely because it 'was becoming increasingly more costly each year to keep it in secure condition,' the RF Ministry of Nuclear Energy press office reported.