Armenia seeks clarity on nuclear plant’s future in talks with IAEA

Armenia’s Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure David Khudatyan and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi have discussed the future of the country’s nuclear power sector.

Their talks focused on extending the operating life of the second unit of the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant and selecting a new model for a nuclear power plant, Caliber.Az reports per foreign media.

The meeting took place during the 70th session of the IAEA General Conference.

Khudatyan also reiterated an invitation for Grossi to visit Armenia and attend events planned as part of COP21.

The Armenian Nuclear Power Plant (ANPP), also known as the Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant, is Armenia’s only nuclear facility and the sole nuclear power plant in the South Caucasus. Located 36 kilometres west of Yerevan, it has two VVER-440 reactors with a combined capacity of 815 MW.

The plant supplied around 40 per cent of Armenia’s electricity in 2015. Unlike modern Western pressurised-water reactors, the Soviet-era facility lacks a secondary containment building.

The Armenian NPP is scheduled to be taken offline for 55 days in 2027 for routine maintenance and refuelling, its director general Eduard Martirosyan said.

He said the work would involve the annual loading and reloading of nuclear fuel, with no replacement of major components planned.

Martirosyan added that the plant had sent a second batch of metal samples from its reactor vessel to Russia’s Rosatom for expert examination.

Armenia plans to extend the plant’s operational lifetime until 2041.

By Aghakazim Guliyev