MOSCOW, 15 Sep — PRIME. The Zaporizhzhya NPP can be out of service for an arbitrarily long time, now it is self-sufficient, said Alexei Likhachev, director general of the Rosatom state corporation.
“Yes, as long as you like,” he answered the question of how long the Zaporizhzhya NPP could stand idle without generating electricity.
According to Likhachev, the station is equipped with VVER-1000 power units, well known to Russian nuclear scientists, built by Soviet specialists.
He added that the availability of electricity for own needs is fundamentally important for the Zaporozhye NPP. The operating station gave part of the electricity, including for cooling the active zones of reactors and nuclear fuel holding pools, now the Zaporizhzhya NPP is powered by one of the reserve lines, the general director of Rosatom specified.
“Given the extremely difficult, tense situation, we assess the security issues as satisfactory,” Likhachev summed up.
Earlier, the authorities of the region announced the shutdown of the last operating sixth power unit of the nuclear power plant. The so-called “cold stop” mode is applied. At the same time, the power supply of the region is carried out in a regular mode, there are no interruptions. The decision was made due to the fact that the Kyiv authorities intentionally fired on and disabled the power lines supplying the nuclear power plant, and also did not accept the energy generated at the nuclear power plant, artificially blocking the flow to the right bank of the Dnieper.