ArmInfo. Armenian nuclear power plant (NPP) will be taken offline for regularly scheduled maintenance on September 20 until November 20, Movses Vardanyan, the Armenian NPP Director General, told ArmInfo.
Standard procedures will be carried out within the two months of the plant's suspension. In addition, under the Lifetime Extension Project of Unit No.2 of the Armenian NPP, a complex of measures will be taken to probe the state of the reactor vessel and the equipment of the primary coolant equipment of the nuclear island. Afterwards, the modernization project will undergo changes basing on the accurate data on the state of the equipment, metal, management system pipelines and many others.
"It is important to make sure that the equipment of the Plant is ready for further service," Movses Vardanyan said.
After the maintenance, the NPP leadership will apply to the State Committee Regulating Nuclear Security for permission for further operation.
Part of the maintenance activities will be funded from the Russian loan of 270 million dollars. 5.7 million dollars will be provided for the operation inspection. Russian Vnesheconombank provides the credit funds after signing of the necessary acts on it. By the end of the year, acts for a total of 27 million dollars will be signed. Besides, there is an advance amount that is provided from the Russian grant of 30 million dollars. Contracts for 180 million dollars will be made by the end of 2016 to import turbo-aggregates, organize capital repair of 4 diesel generator pumps and other activities.
After the maintenance, a final program to extend the lifetime of the unit No.2 for 10 years will be developed. Vardanyan recalled that the decision to extend the lifetime of the power unit for 10 years was adopted by the government of Armenia, but the new equipment to be installed at the Plant is designed for 30 years. In his words, in 2026, it will be possible to extend the lifetime again but with minimum costs. In September 2016 the lifetime service of the unit No.2 of the Armenian NPP will be 30 years and theoretically the plant will be able to generate power for another 30 years after the necessary activities.
"After the maintenance activities, the capacity of the Plant will increase by 40-50MW and it will be able to generate additional 400million kWh electric power without additional fueling," Vardanyan said.
To service the Russian loan, after 2020 the NPP is going to apply to the Regulator to raise the tariff for the Plant. However, if the relevant funds are saved and the 200 mln USD project is implemented, the need to raise the tariff will fall off. The loan will be serviced at the expense of spare megawatts. "Anyway, the tariff is most likely to grow and this will happen after 2020," he said.
