The History of Nuclear Energy - The Very First Nuclear Power Plant

The very first civilian nuclear power station in the world to produce electricity and also Russia's first nuclear power plant was the 6 MW Obninsk Nuclear Power Station built in 1954. The Obninsk Nuclear Power Station was built in the city of Obninsk, about 110km from Moscow. The station was also known as APS-1 Obninsk (Atomic Power Station 1 Obninsk).

Nuclear reactor hall at Obninsk Power Station

The single reactor unit was named AM-1 which is Russian for Atom Mirny, or "peaceful atom". This reactor was a forerunner of the RBMK reactors which was used in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant incident. 

Started its operation in June 1954, Obninsk Power Station remained the only nuclear power station in the Soviet Union for around 10 years, and was decommissioned on 29 April 2002.

The very first nuclear power station built had a total capacity of 6MW. In comparison, nuclear reactors today are able to produce up to 1315MW of energy!

Source: Russian Nuclear Energy