Less than 48 hours after Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi on Thursday established the presence of the IAEA Support and Assistance Mission to Zaporizhzhia (ISAMZ) at the facility in southern Ukraine, the Agency’s experts were told by senior Ukrainian staff that the ZNPP’s fourth operational 750 Kilovolt (kV) power line was down. The three others were lost earlier during the war.
However, the IAEA experts – now present at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant located in the middle of a war zone – also learnt that the 330/750 kV reserve line linking the facility to a nearby thermal power plant was delivering the electricity the ZNPP generates to the external grid. The same reserve line can also provide back-up power to the ZNPP if needed.
In addition, plant management informed the IAEA team that one of the ZNPP’s two operating units was disconnected in the afternoon today due to grid restrictions. The same unit 5 was disconnected also on 1 September – the day of Director General Grossi’s arrival at the site – due to an internal electrical failure but it was reconnected the following day.
One reactor is still operating and producing electricity both for cooling and other essential safety functions at the site and for households, factories and others through the grid. The ZNPP is held by Russian forces since early March, but its Ukrainian staff are continuing to operate the plant.
