I am proud of our participation in the project that helped make the  Armenian nuclear power plant safer and more efficient - Rosatom  Director General

ArmInfo.On the occasion of the completion of modernization project and extension of the operation life of the 2nd nuclear reactor of the Armenian nuclear-power plant (NPP), Alexey Likhachev, General Director of the Rosatom state corporation, visited  the Armenian NPP on November 16, the Rosatom oofficial ebsite  reports. 

Alexey Likhachev made a tour of the site, turbine hall and control  room. After that he took part in the award ceremony held to honor the  NPP best employees and the ceremony of planting trees of ROSATOM  alley on the ANPP site.

Gnel Sanosyan, Minister of Territorial Administration and  Infrastructures, represented the Republic of Armenia; Eduard  Martirosyan, Director General of HAEK CJSC, Movses Vardanyan, First  Deputy Director General - Director of the Armenian NPP, and Artur  Grigoryan, the ANPP Chief Engineer represented Haykakan Atomayin  Elektrakayan CJSC. The delegation of the Russian Federation included  Evgeny Salkov, Director General of Rusatom Service JSC (the key  contractor for the ANPP modernization), Vladimir Bredov, Deputy  Director General for Project Management, and Yuri Sviridenko, Head of  the Integrated Projects Department.

The NPP operational life has been extended till 2026. This is the key  Armenian-Russian project in the nuclear power industry. The main task  of the project was to retrofit the Armenian NPP and improve its  safety and efficiency.

"I am proud of our participation in the project that helped make the  Armenian nuclear power plant safer and more efficient. Together, as a  team of professionals, including specialists of the Armenian NPP,  repair companies, research institutes, Armenian and Russian  engineering and design organizations, as well as manufacturers of NPP  equipment, we did a tremendous amount of work replacing and  modernizing the equipment. Due to the completed set of the project  activities, Unit 2 of the Armenian NPP now meets the most recent  international requirements, and the NPP will continue supplying  electricity to the citizens of Armenia" noted Alexey Likhachev.   According to the results of the research and tests done by  specialists of Rosatom the technical parameters of 

Unit 2 of the ANPP allow operating the unit for another 10 years.   "The Armenian NPP plays a decisive role for the national energy  security and independence. It would be no exaggeration to highlight  this large-scale project among the most important ones in Armenia,"  said Gnel Sanosyan. "We will not stop at this point but rather set  new goals of extending the ANPP operation life for another 10 years  after 2026 and further developing the industry by constructing a new  NPP."

Since the start of the plant modernization in 2015 a great amount of  work was done to improve the NPP safety, inspect and replace its  equipment. This made possible 15% increase of the Unit's capacity  while keeping the original nuclear fuel consumption rate. One of the  most important tasks completed at the NPP was the reactor vessel  annealing which resulted in 85% restoration of the metal properties.