ArmInfo. The issue of permission for the production of electricity of the Armenian nuclear power plant will be resolved after the completion of planned preventive work at the plant. On July 2, Chairman of the Nuclear Safety CommitҐҐ Ashot Martirosyan told the Nuclear Safety in an interview with ArmInfo correspondent.
According to him, from June 1 to September 10, an outage is held at the second power unit of the NPP, after which a comprehensive inspection of the work done is to be carried out, and only after that a permit is issued. The head of the Committee abstained from evaluating the preventive work at the plant, calling for a wait until August of this year. He recalled that the station was issued in 2011 a license for the production of electricity for a period of 10 years, thus, it will expire in 2021.
At the same time, the Committee annually after the preventive work at the plant conducts a comprehensive audit of the planned preventive work, after which issues a permit for the operation and production of electricity.
It should be noted that at present, preventive maintenance and measures are being carried out at the Armenian NPP as part of a program to extend the life of the second power unit of the plant for a period of 10 years.
This year it is planned to replace the second turbogenerator, automatic control system, to carry out repair work on cooling towers. In addition, work will be carried out to prepare for processing the dome of the reactor, which will be subjected to temperature treatment (annealing), in order to increase its strength to resist neutron fluxes. The annealing itself will be carried out in 2020. All work on the project will be completed by the end of 2021.
The Armenian NPP 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 was stopped. In November 1995, in connection with the acute energy crisis, the second block of the plant with a capacity of 407.5 MW was activated. In March 2014, the Armenian government decided to extend the life of the second power unit by 10 years - until 2026. The government of the Russian Federation has allocated Armenia for these purposes a state export credit in the amount of $ 270 million and a grant of $ 30 million.