Armenian Nuclear Power Plant Shuts Down for 141 Days Starting Today

The newspaper "Hayastani Hanrapetutyun" reports: "Starting from May 15, the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant (ANPP) will halt its operations for 141 days. This plant is vital for our country's political, economic, and energy security. Essentially, this means that from today until October, the energy system of Armenia will face significant difficulties. In addition to the nuclear plant being shut down for a longer period than usual, the 5th block of the Hrazdan Thermal Power Plant is also not operational, and due to understandable and unfortunate reasons, we will not be receiving 330 million kWh of electricity from Artsakh. Will this not lead to energy issues and, as a result, rolling blackouts?"

The newspaper posed this question to M. Vardanyan, the Deputy Director General of "ANPP" LLC and director of the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant. "In any case, this is an issue to be resolved by the 'Electric Power System Operator' LLC. However, initially, when the annual schedules were being prepared, the operator did not foresee any issues during our plant's shutdown. And it now seems that the question of importing electricity from Georgia is also being discussed during this period, as it is cheaper. The Yerevan Thermal Power Plant will likely remain in reserve," M. Vardanyan explained. "Why 141 days, such a long time? Typically, shutdowns lasted 2-2.5 months..."

For more details, see today’s edition of the newspaper.