VIENNA, March 15. /TASS/. The Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant has restored connection to its only back-up power line, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi said.
"Ukraine’s Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) has regained access to its only remaining back-up power line, following an outage of more than three weeks that once again underlined persistent nuclear safety and security risks facing the site," he said. "The ZNPP’s connection to the 330 kilovolt (kV) off-site power line was restored shortly after 6pm local time on Thursday, providing a much-needed buffer for the plant which has suffered eight complete loss of external power events over the past year and a half."
"Last evening’s positive development should not hide the fact that the power situation at the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant continues to be extremely fragile and vulnerable to further disruptions. I remain deeply concerned about the nuclear safety and security situation at this major nuclear facility," Grossi noted.
ZNPP spokesperson Yevgenia Yashina said earlier that the 330kV power line, ZNPP’s only back-up power line, had been put into operation by the Ukrainian side.
About the ZNPP
The construction of the Zaporozhye NPP began in 1979 and its first unit was commissioned in 1984. Four more units were put into operation from 1984 to 1987. In 1988, it was decided to expand the plant and build two more units. In all, the plant has six power units with reactors of 1,000 MW each. Over the period of its operation, the plant generated more than 1.2 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity, which is enough to feed Moscow for 30 years or St. Petersburg for 50 years.
Located in the city of Energodar, the Zaporozhye NPP is Europe’s largest nuclear power plant and has six power units with an aggregate capacity of 6 GW. Russian forces took control of the facility in February 2022. Since then, Ukrainian troops have been periodically shelling both the city and the plant’s territory. Five of the plant’s units have been in a state of cold shutdown and one - in the state of hot shutdown since September 2022.