Great work planned at Armenian NPP in 2024-2025  - minister

ArmInfo. Great work is planned at the Armenian NPP in 2024- 2025, Armenia's Minister of Territorial  Administration and Infrastructure Gnel Sanosyan stated at the 2024 draft budget discussions in Armenia's Parliament. 

According to him, every year the station stops for scheduled  preventive maintenance for a period of 50-70 days, and next year will  not be an exception. The ANPP has a license to operate the station  until 2026.  Before that, large-scale work will be carried out at the  ANPP during 2024-2025, which will allow extending the life of the  ANPP until 2036.

In parallel with the program for extending the life of the station,  active discussions are underway on the project for the construction  of a new nuclear power unit. This work will continue next year, the  minister noted.

In April of this year, Sanosyan reported that Armenia was entering  the second stage of work to extend the operating life of the current  second power unit of the Armenian NPP for another 10 years. He noted  that it is planned to extend the life of the unit until 2036. Work in  this direction will begin in September this year, and the process of  upgrading the station itself will take two years, after which it is  planned to obtain permission from the regulator, represented by the  Committee for Nuclear Safety Regulation, to operate the ANPP for a  period of 10 years. The minister stressed that at the same time work  was underway on the project for the construction of a new nuclear  power unit, and a difficult decision had to be made on this issue,  ranging from financial to political and energy. "There are numerous  components. The problem is that the new blocks are being built taking  into account their operation for 60 years and the possibility of  prolonging this period for another 40 years. That is, the new blocks  are designed for 100 years, and we must make the right decision so  that the new block with its capacities fits into the country's  overall energy system," Sanosyan said.

He recalled that at present the capacity of the country's energy  complex is 1,200 megawatts. The units that are currently in operation  have similar capacities from 1,000 to 1,400 megawatts. And if a  decision is made to build a block with a capacity of 1,000 megawatts  or more, it will turn out that all 100% of the electricity production  in the country will fall on this block, which, according to the  minister, is unacceptable, since the entire energy complex will  depend on one block. . "For this reason, an accurate calculation is  needed in order to assess the level of electricity consumption in the  country by 2070 and the growth rate of the country's economy," the  minister stressed. He added that the government's vision on this  issue will be determined by the end of this year.

At the same time, it is important to hurry up with the decision,  since the construction period of a new unit is 8-10 years, which  means that in 2025-2026 it will be necessary to start building a new  nuclear power unit in order to be in time by 2036.

On March 23, 2023, the Armenian government decided to start the  process of re-extension of the operation of the Armenian NPP until  2036. The design life of the nuclear power plant expired in 2016, but  due to large-scale modernization and re-equipment work, it was  extended until 2026. The work was financed by Russian credit and  grant funds in the amount of $189 million and funds from the state  budget of Armenia in the amount of 63.2 billion drams. Taking into  account the work already performed and the opinions of relevant  organizations and international experience in extending the life of  similar power units, it is planned, through additional investments  and work, to create opportunities for extending the design life of  the second power unit of the Armenian NPP for another 10 years - from  2026 to 2036. The government decision envisages developing an  appropriate program, evaluating the technical feasibility of  extending the design life of the power unit, the necessary financial  resources and the impact of possible investments on the tariff for  the end consumer.

It should be noted that the cost of extending the service life of the  ANPP for 10 years, according to preliminary data, will cost $130-$170  million.