Chernobyl nuclear power plantChernobyl, Ukraine · 2018

Chernobyl: the power that cannot be cut

A special Silentflex metal plinth carries the critical UPS of the Chernobyl plant: the unit that keeps the safety systems powered when the grid fails.

2018
year of supply: Critical UPS
the equipment protected: 100%
metal: no rubber or combustible materials

126 April 1986
The night that changed nuclear power
At 1:23 in the morning, reactor 4 of the Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine exploded. It is the worst nuclear accident in history, and decades later the plant still needs monitoring, maintenance and safety systems that work without interruption.
22016
A steel arch over the reactor
In 2016 the New Safe Confinement was slid over the reactor: a steel arch 108 m high with a 257 m span, the largest movable land-based structure ever built. Its job is to contain the damaged reactor for the next hundred years.
3The challenge
The power that cannot be cut
A plant's critical systems depend on a UPS, an uninterruptible power supply: if the grid goes down, its batteries keep the power on without a single break. It is heavy equipment that has to stay upright and connected even if the ground moves.
42018 · The solution
A special metal plinth for the critical UPS
Silentflex designed and manufactured a special metal plinth for the plant's critical UPS, supplied through a French integrator. It is all-metal: no rubber that hardens over the years and no combustible materials, two key requirements in a nuclear installation.
5Why it matters
The same technology, tested for nuclear power plants
Three years later, a Silentflex rack plinth passed the seismic tests of the nuclear standard IEEE 344 for the Krško plant in Slovenia. When equipment cannot fail, it stands on metal.