Release date
Off-site power to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), which has been occupied by Russian forces for nearly four years, is being restored after a month-long outage, officials said Thursday.
Energy Minister Svitlana Grinchuk said the damaged 750 kilovolt Dniprovska transmission line, which connects the Russian-occupied power plant to Ukraine’s power grid, has been repaired, while work continues on the 330 kilovolt backup line of the Ferozprauna transmission line, which runs through the Russian-occupied territory.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said repairs to Europe’s largest nuclear power plant were carried out under a local ceasefire.
The report called the return of off-site power an “important step for nuclear safety.”
The Russian and Ukrainian militaries have set up a special ceasefire zone to safely carry out repairs, an unusual move for both sides to cooperate.
“Both countries worked constructively with the IAEA to enable the complex restoration plan to proceed,” Grossi said in a statement.
Grinchuk said Ukrainian energy workers have repaired the power plant’s power lines 42 times since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
During that time, the facility lost outside power and had to rely on emergency diesel generators on 10 occasions.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been running on diesel backup generators since September 23, when the last remaining external power lines were severed in an attack that Russia and Ukraine each claimed responsibility for.
The power plant, located in an area under Russian control since the early days of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, has been idle but requires reliable power to cool six shut down reactors and spent fuel to avoid a catastrophic nuclear accident.
Grossi said Saturday that emergency diesel generators were designed as a “last line of defense” to cool reactors at nuclear power plants, but their use has now become “an all-too-common occurrence.”
“Nuclear safety and security remains under serious threat as long as this devastating conflict continues. Today we had some unusually positive news to report, but we are not out of the woods yet,” Grossi said.
caught in the crossfire
In October, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy sounded the alarm about security risks in Zaporizhzhia, saying there was no need to keep backup generators running for so long.
President Zelenskiy said that “generators and plants were not designed for such an event” and called the situation “critical”.
Zaporizhia is one of the world’s 10 largest nuclear power plants, and its fate amid the fighting has raised concerns about the possibility of a nuclear holocaust.
Russian forces occupied it early after the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
Ukraine has four nuclear power plants, but only Zaporizhia is owned by Russia.
Tensions over the power plant’s safety add to broader concerns about the course of the war, which shows no signs of ending after U.S.-led efforts to halt the fighting failed.
Additional sources of information • AP
