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Ukraine plans to lease some Chernobyl facilities to host solar power systems

Ukrainian premier said earlier that the construction of the first solar energy plant in the Chernobyl zone had begun in April 2017

© Mikhail Palynchak/Press Office of the President of Ukraine/TASS

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Chernobyl: Myths and facts

KIEV, July 31. /TASS/. Ukraine’s State Property Fund has placed an ad for leasing an engineering facility of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant’s cooling system, the Fund said in a statement published on its website.

"The area totals 2.5 mln square meters, the facility is to be leased to host a solar photovoltaic energy plant with a capacity of 100 MW. The maximum term of lease is 49 years," the statement reads.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Vladimir Groisman said earlier that the construction of "the first solar energy plant in the Chernobyl zone" had begun in April 2017.

At the same time, the country’s Minister for Environment and Natural Resources Ostap Semerak said that "green" energy from the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone will be received "in the first six months of the year" [2017 - TASS], however, there have been no official statements concerning the launch of a solar energy plant.

Chernobyl disaster

The disaster at the fourth reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant occurred in the small hours of April 26, 1986. More than 200,000 square kilometers of land, first and foremost, in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, became affected. In November 1986, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant sarcophagus or Shelter Object, a massive steel and concrete structure covering the nuclear reactor No. 4, was installed. It has prevented the dissemination of no less than 95% of the ruined reactor’s fuel-containing masses, as well as 70,000 tonnes of radioactive metal, concrete, glass-like masses and several dozen tonnes of radioactive dust.

In 2012, the construction of a new confinement arch began, which is expected to cover the Shelter facility. In November 2016, the arch-shaped confinement was moved to the planned position. It is scheduled to be commissioned in November 2017.

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