ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
July 16, 2004 Friday 2:31 PM Eastern Time
Armenian NPP to be halted for 65 days of repairs
By Tigran Liloyan
YEREVAN
The Armenian nuclear power plant will be stopped for planned repairs
and fuel loading in the small hours of July 31. The repairs will take
65 days, Armenian NPP General Director Gagik Markosyan told Itar-Tass
on Friday. The power plant will be connected to the Armenian
electricity network on October 4.
That will be the largest repair in the entire history of the Armenian
nuclear power plant, Markosyan said. The power plant’s main computer
will be replaced with $1 million from the U.S. Department of Energy.
Eur550,000 from the TACIS program will help to replace 37 switches,
six kilovolt each. The power plant’s safety will thereby be upgraded.
The fourth turbo-generator will be repaired, and blades of two
turbo-generators will be replaced.
The Armenian nuclear power plant was commissioned in 1979 and halted
after the devastating earthquake of 1989. The mothballed power plant
was restarted in 1996 with the assistance of Russian specialists. The
second unit of the power plant provides for about 40% of all
electricity in Armenia. A Russian-Armenian intergovernmental
agreement put the Armenian NPP under control of Inter UES, a
subsidiary of the Russian Unified Energy System grid.
Meanwhile, the European Union insists on closure of the Armenian
nuclear power plant that is located 40 kilometers west of Yerevan.
The Armenian authorities say that the power plant can be closed only
if the country obtains other sources of energy.