Ukraine announced the difficulty of exporting electricity to Europe without the ZNPP

MOSCOW, 7 Oct — PRIME. It will be difficult for Ukraine to export electricity to Europe without the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, Energy Minister German Galushchenko said in an interview with the Left Bank online publication.

“It will be very difficult. Export is an opportunity to earn money for the energy market, which is now going through hard times, in particular due to a drop in consumption. The operation of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant in the unified energy system makes it possible to export up to two gigawatts or up to three gigawatts to Europe. “This is very important not only for us, but also for the Europeans. The question is that the more we export, the less the Europeans consume Russian gas and coal. Conventionally, 1 GW or 2 GW is billions of cubic meters of gas per year,” – he answered the question whether Ukraine will be able to export electricity without the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant.

Zaporozhye NPP is located on the left bank of the Dnieper near the town of Energodar. This is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe in terms of the number of units and installed capacity – the plant has six power units with a capacity of 1 gigawatt each. Since March, it has been under the protection of the Russian military. The Russian Foreign Ministry emphasized that this step was justified in order to avoid leakage of nuclear and radioactive materials. The Ukrainian military continues to regularly shell Enerhodar and the territory of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant adjacent to the city.

In early September, an IAEA mission headed by Director General Rafael Grossi arrived at the ZNPP. The head of the delegation of “Rosatom” and the staff of the station led the delegation of the IAEA through its territory and showed the sections of the station that had been damaged during the shelling of Ukrainian troops. Two IAEA employees remained at ZNPP on a permanent basis. As a result of the visit of the mission, the IAEA published a report in which it confirmed the fact of shelling of the ZNPP.