Thursday, March 18 2021 16:32

ArmInfo. The strategic program for the development of the energy sector of Armenia until 2040 provides for a repeated extension of the life of the Armenian nuclear  power plant after 2026, and in the future, the construction of a new  nuclear power plant.

This is stated in the greeting message of the  Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructures of the  Republic of Armenia Suren Papikyan to the participants of the panel  discussion "Prospects for the development of the nuclear industry in  Armenia", which took place on March 18 in Yerevan.

As the minister noted, the NPP is a stable supplier of clean energy  and it is thanks to this that Armenia will be able to fulfill its  obligations under the Paris Agreement on combating climate change.   It should be noted that earlier the management of the Armenian NPP  has repeatedly announced the availability of a resource to extend the  life of the ANPP until 2040 (in 2026 for five years, and in 2030 for  10 years until 2040).

It should be reminded that preparatory work for the recovery  annealing of the reactor vessel has started at the Armenian Nuclear  Power Plant. Annealing of the reactor will be carried out in 2021  during scheduled preventive maintenance at the station. These works  are scheduled for May-October. In connection with the annealing of  the rector, PPM-2021 will last longer than usual - about 140 days.  The annealing technology will restore the physical and mechanical  properties of the metal by 80% -85%, and is considered the most  effective way to extend the operation of the station all over the  world. In addition, the emergency core cooling system and the  reliable power supply system will be modernized.  The Armenian  government provided a budgetary loan in the amount of 63.2 billion  drams (about $ 130 million) to complete the ANPP program. For the  implementation of the program Armenia earlier attracted a loan of $  270 million from the Russian Federation and a grant of $ 30 million  at 3% per annum, and as of today, the residual resource of these  funds was $ 107 million. For objective and subjective reasons, it was  not possible to agree with Russian partners on this residual  resource. For this reason, a decision was made to attract a budgetary  loan of 63.2 billion drams. The maturity of each tranche is 12 years,  of which the first 2 years will be concessional. The interest rate  will be equivalent to the interest rate of the borrowed funds of the  Russian Federation, attracted earlier.

Since 2015, a modernization project has been implemented at the  Armenian NPP. A large amount of work has already been completed: the  sprinkler system has been modernized, all equipment subject to  inspection (about 5 thousand units) has been inspected, the equipment  of the turbine hall has been completely replaced, which made it  possible to increase electricity generation by 10-15% with the same  fuel consumption. Now the project has entered a decisive stage - work  is underway to prepare the second power unit for an additional  service life.