ArmInfo. Great work is planned at the Armenian NPP in 2024- 2025, Armenia's Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure Gnel Sanosyan stated at the 2024 draft budget discussions in Armenia's Parliament.
According to him, every year the station stops for scheduled preventive maintenance for a period of 50-70 days, and next year will not be an exception. The ANPP has a license to operate the station until 2026. Before that, large-scale work will be carried out at the ANPP during 2024-2025, which will allow extending the life of the ANPP until 2036.
In parallel with the program for extending the life of the station, active discussions are underway on the project for the construction of a new nuclear power unit. This work will continue next year, the minister noted.
In April of this year, Sanosyan reported that Armenia was entering the second stage of work to extend the operating life of the current second power unit of the Armenian NPP for another 10 years. He noted that it is planned to extend the life of the unit until 2036. Work in this direction will begin in September this year, and the process of upgrading the station itself will take two years, after which it is planned to obtain permission from the regulator, represented by the Committee for Nuclear Safety Regulation, to operate the ANPP for a period of 10 years. The minister stressed that at the same time work was underway on the project for the construction of a new nuclear power unit, and a difficult decision had to be made on this issue, ranging from financial to political and energy. "There are numerous components. The problem is that the new blocks are being built taking into account their operation for 60 years and the possibility of prolonging this period for another 40 years. That is, the new blocks are designed for 100 years, and we must make the right decision so that the new block with its capacities fits into the country's overall energy system," Sanosyan said.
He recalled that at present the capacity of the country's energy complex is 1,200 megawatts. The units that are currently in operation have similar capacities from 1,000 to 1,400 megawatts. And if a decision is made to build a block with a capacity of 1,000 megawatts or more, it will turn out that all 100% of the electricity production in the country will fall on this block, which, according to the minister, is unacceptable, since the entire energy complex will depend on one block. . "For this reason, an accurate calculation is needed in order to assess the level of electricity consumption in the country by 2070 and the growth rate of the country's economy," the minister stressed. He added that the government's vision on this issue will be determined by the end of this year.
At the same time, it is important to hurry up with the decision, since the construction period of a new unit is 8-10 years, which means that in 2025-2026 it will be necessary to start building a new nuclear power unit in order to be in time by 2036.
On March 23, 2023, the Armenian government decided to start the process of re-extension of the operation of the Armenian NPP until 2036. The design life of the nuclear power plant expired in 2016, but due to large-scale modernization and re-equipment work, it was extended until 2026. The work was financed by Russian credit and grant funds in the amount of $189 million and funds from the state budget of Armenia in the amount of 63.2 billion drams. Taking into account the work already performed and the opinions of relevant organizations and international experience in extending the life of similar power units, it is planned, through additional investments and work, to create opportunities for extending the design life of the second power unit of the Armenian NPP for another 10 years - from 2026 to 2036. The government decision envisages developing an appropriate program, evaluating the technical feasibility of extending the design life of the power unit, the necessary financial resources and the impact of possible investments on the tariff for the end consumer.
It should be noted that the cost of extending the service life of the ANPP for 10 years, according to preliminary data, will cost $130-$170 million.
