Saturday, April 14 2018 17:53

ArmInfo. On April 14, at 24 :00  the 4th turbine unit of the operating power unit of the Armenian  nuclear power plant (ANPP). As the press service of the Ministry of  Energy Infrastructures and Natural Resources of Armenia informs,  today, on April 14, the program started as part of the planned  preventive preventive maintenance at the second power unit of the  ANPP. The program will continue activities aimed at improving the  safety level of the ANPP, and work will begin on the modernization of  equipment.

"The work of the reactor of the 2nd power unit of the ANPP will be  resumed on August 1, 2018 simultaneously with the 4-v turbine unit,  and the third turbo-unit - December 1, 2018 guide," the Ministry of  Energy said.

Earlier, in an interview with ArmInfo, the deputy general director of  the ANPP, the director of the program for extending the life of the  second power unit of the station Hera Sevikyan informed that with the  stop of the turbine the active phase of the second stage of the  extension program begins, during which a huge amount of work is  planned to be done on the basis of the surveys of the main equipment  conducted last year. "This year, serious measures are to be taken on  the turbine workshop, which generates electricity, and next year -  the bulk will be delivered to the reactor plant, which will also be  upgraded to ensure safe and reliable operation of the unit," said  Gera Sevikyan, adding that with June 1 reactor station will be  stopped for a period of two months. Thus, the ANPP, on the one hand,  will continue to generate electricity, and on the other will undergo  modernization. At the same time, the second turbine will continue to  generate electricity. After modernization, one of the turbines will  start producing electricity again, and the other will be stopped for  reconstruction. Thus, the unit will continue to supply electricity to  the grid, but in a volume that is twice as low as envisaged.

In 2018, the main front of the work will be to modernize the reactor  cooling systems, which will further improve the safety of the unit,  bringing it closer to world standards. In addition, in 2018, a huge  amount of work is to be done to modernize equipment for generating  electricity - turbines, capacitors, separators, output transformers.   Within this stage, it is planned to increase the unit's capacity by  17-20% without increasing the fuel consumption, which will make it  possible to increase the efficiency. At present, the unit operates at  92% capacity, which is about 380 MW. After modernization, the  capacity will rise to 470 MW, which will be a solid addition,  allowing without additional problems to begin servicing a loan of the  Russian Federation of $ 270 million.

The Armenian nuclear power plant consists of two units with Soviet  (Russian) WWER reactors. The first unit was commissioned in 1976, the  second - in 1980. In March 1989, after the Spitak earthquake, which  killed 25 thousand people, the station's work was stopped. In  November 1995, in connection with the most acute energy crisis, the  second power unit of the station with a capacity of 407.5 MW was  involved. In March 2014, the Armenian government decided to extend  the life of the second power unit by 10 years - until 2026.   Completion of work is planned for 2019. The government of the Russian  Federation allocated to Armenia for these purposes a state export  loan worth $ 270 million and a grant of $ 30 million.