There are no signs that the Russian Federation is preparing to restart the temporarily occupied Ukrainian Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP).
Reuters reports this, citing a representative of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The IAEA has not officially commented on the situation.
"Our teams continue to confirm that there are currently no indications that any active preparations are currently underway to restart the station," he said.
In a new report, the Agencyʼs Director General Rafael Grossi, who will travel to Russia and Ukraine next week, said that the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been connected to only one 750 kV power line for more than 3 weeks. The last backup power line, 330 kV, went out on May 7.
Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, ZNPP has lost access to all external power supply eight times, but it has usually been restored within a day.
“Energoatom” previously explained that before the Russians occupied the Zaporizhzhia NPP, the plant consumed electricity from its own four transmission lines and three reserve lines. And during the occupation, the joint efforts of “Rosatom” so-called "specialists" and the Russian military contingent brought the Zaporizhzhia NPP to the last stage of degradation.
If the only working line fails, this will mean that Zaporizhzhia NPP will lose external power supply to the station with the launch of emergency diesel generators. After all, their resources are limited both in terms of operating time and the availability of diesel fuel. Thus, the launch of diesel generators means the beginning of the countdown to the start of nuclear fuel melting.
What preceded
NYT on May 27, citing a Greenpeace report, wrote that Russia is planning to connect the Zaporizhzhia NPP to its power grid. This is indicated, in particular, by satellite images, which show that since February the Russian Federation has been building more than 80 km of power lines and towers between occupied Mariupol and Berdyansk.
Planet Labs / Greenpeace
Thus, the Russians want to connect the new lines to a large substation near Mariupol, which is connected to the Zaporizhzhia NPP, located approximately 225 km away.
However, there are many technological risks to restarting. After more than three years of war, critical equipment has still not been replaced, many experienced Ukrainian workers have been laid off. And the explosion of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant deprived ZNPP of its main source of water for cooling the reactors and spent fuel.
Moscowʼs exact plans are still unknown. It is unclear whether it wants to launch the plant after or during hostilities. In any case, experts say, Russia will have to build several more lines to fully connect the nuclear power plant to its own grid, and this is a long process.
However, this may be the first time in history that an aggressor state seizes another countryʼs nuclear facility and uses it for its own energy purposes.
- The Russians occupied the Zaporizhzhia NPP in early March 2022, and it has 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 Russian occupiers from the station. President Volodymyr Zelensky emphasizes that as long as Russian soldiers are at the Zaporizhzhia NPP, “the world remains on the brink of nuclear catastrophe”. Russia refuses to create a demilitarized zone at the Zaporizhzhia NPP.
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