After visiting Kyiv, the IAEA Director General will travel to Russia to negotiate the creation of a nuclear safety protection zone surrounding the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power facility. The IAEA report states this.
“Protecting the Zaporizhzhya NPP is crucial. To agree on a nuclear safety protection zone around the NPP, I will soon travel to the Russian Federation and then return to Ukraine. This is an absolute and pressing need”, the IAEA Director General Grossi stressed.
Mr Grossi called it “extremely irresponsible” to resume shelling the ZNPP after it suffered a total blackout.
The IAEA reports that all of the station’s safety systems are currently receiving power and functioning normally. Engineers from ZNPP have begun to fix the broken 750 kV power transmission line.
At the ZNPP, 16 diesel generators automatically turned on after the blackout. Ten generators were shut down once the situation was under control, leaving only six to supply the reactors with the necessary electricity.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi announced that the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) in Ukraine has lost its last remaining external power source due to renewed shelling and is now dependent on emergency diesel generators for the electricity required for reactor cooling and other crucial nuclear safety and security functions.
According to Director General Grossi, who cited reports from the team of IAEA experts on site at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant and official information from Ukraine, the ZNPP’s link to the 750 kilovolt (kV) power line was disrupted.
Six of the plant’s reactors were powered by sixteen diesel generators that switched on automatically. Ten of the generators were turned off once the situation had stabilized, leaving only six to supply the reactors with the necessary electricity.
The IAEA specialists were briefed by senior Ukrainian operating employees at the site that all of the plant’s safety systems are still receiving power and are functioning normally.
The six reactors still need power to perform essential nuclear safety and security tasks even when they are in cool shutdown. Each of the diesel generators at the plant has enough fuel to run for at least ten days. Engineers from ZNPP have started to fix the damaged 750 kV power line.
