ArmInfo.Within December 13-17, 2021 upon the invitation of <Skoda JS> company Eduard Martirosyan, <HAEK> CJSC General Director, and Movses Vardanyan, As the official website of the ANPP reports, First Deputy General Director- ANPP Director visited the Czech Republic.
The working visit was aimed at studying in situ the reactor facility components and the sites for production of spent nuclear fuel storage casks, as well as the fuel compact storage racks. Under the EU Support Program the Armenian NPP has been actively cooperating with the <Skoda JS> company since 2004. The project related to the spent fuel storage facilities is definitely a crucial one among the other top important projects that have been implemented so far.
The Armenian NPP management following the scheduled visit agenda attended also the Dukovany NPP. In the controlled area of the Czech NPP they had an opportunity to examine in situ the spent nuclear fuel dry storage casks produced by <Skoda JS> company, and at Unit 2 that was under scheduled annual outage they got acquainted with the equipment, systems and the activities being implemented.
The management of the <HAEK> CJSC also had working meetings with the senior staff of Bria s.r.o. and TacticWare s.r.o. Czech companies, they attended the test site and participated in the tests implemented under the perimeter security project.
In the course of the working meetings a number of issues of mutual importance have been discussed that will not only contribute to the enhancement of the Armenian-Czech cooperation, but also to its further development. It should be noted that after the implementation of the modernization program of the Armenian NPP, the second power unit of station was put into operation on October 17 this year and connected to the unified energy system of the country. This was the longest and most important preventive maintenance (PM). The PPR was carried out with the aim of extending the life of the station until 2026, as well as the possible prospects for its operation until 2036.
The Armenian NPP consists of two units with Soviet (Russian) VVER reactors. The first unit was put into operation in 1976, the second - in 1980. In March 1989, after the Spitak earthquake, which killed 25 thousand people, the work of the station was stopped. In November 1995, in connection with an acute energy crisis, the second power unit of the station with a capacity of 407.5 MW was put into operation. In March 2014, the Armenian government made a decision to extend the life of the second power unit by 10 years - until 2026. The government of the Russian Federation allocated a state export credit to Armenia for this purpose.