The Zaporizhzhia NPP connected to main power line damaged by Russian shelling

On November 14, power engineers have restored the operation of the “Dniprovska” high-voltage line at the occupied Zaporizhzhia NPP (ZNPP), which was damaged by a Russian attack. This is one of the two external power transmission lines of the plant, which is the main one for its power supply.

This was reported by “Ukrenergo" and “Energoatom".

For four days, ZNPP received power from only one power transmission line “Ferrosplavna”.

After the previous power supply, the line, which was restored today, worked for less than a week, and before that it had been without power for about six months — since May. The reasons for the outages are regular Russian shelling — due to damage to the wires, breaks and short circuits occur.

Since the start of the full-scale invasion, Ukrainian energy workers have restored power lines to the Zaporizhzhia NPP 42 times. Ten times the plant lost power from the Ukrainian power system completely.

What is known about the occupation of the Zaporizhzhia NPP?

The Russians occupied ZNPP in early March 2022 and have been operating under their control since then. An IAEA mission has been stationed at the station since September 2022. Ukraine insists on the withdrawal of the Russian occupiers from the station. Russia refuses to create a demilitarized zone at ZNPP.

In September of this year, Putin stated that Russia is ready to cooperate with the United States and Ukraine on the issue of the Zaporizhzhia NPP. According to him, “if favorable circumstances arise, we have discussed this with our American colleagues, the three of us can even work on the Zaporizhzhia NPP”.

Back in March of this year, the Russians stated that ZNPP is a Russian nuclear facility and that transferring control over it to Ukraine or any other country is impossible.

In April, Reuters published a US peace plan that proposed that Ukraine regain control of ZNPP. The US would operate the plant and supply electricity to Ukraine and Russia. In response, Ukraine and the EU presented their own plan — in which Ukraine would regain control of the plant with the participation of the US, Russia is not mentioned in this issue.

Currently, ZNPP is connected to only one external power supply line. “Energoatom” explained that if the only working line fails, this will mean that the Zaporizhzhia NPP will lose external power supply to the station and will start emergency diesel generators.

However, their resources are limited both in terms of operating time and the availability of diesel fuel. Thus, the start of diesel generators means the beginning of the countdown to the start of nuclear fuel melting.

On October 30, Russia’s massive combined strike on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure damaged substations critical to the country’s nuclear safety and security. On November 14, ZNPP lost power to one of its two external power transmission lines, the “Dniprovska” line, which is the main one supplying it.

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