Monday, June 13 2016 08:57

The year 2016 marks the 40th anniversary of commissioning of the first VVER-440 power unit of the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant.    

Deputy Minister of Energy and Natural Resources of Armenia Areg Galstyan has told ArmInfo that the event will be celebrated in December 2016. The deputy minister stresses that all official documents related to development of Armenia's power engineering stress that the nuclear power engineering will not only be maintained but will also be developed. An important project on extension of the ANPP Unit 2 lifetime is being implemented jointly with Rosatom at the expense of a Russian 270 mln USD loan and a 30 mln USD grant. The project will be completed in 2019," the deputy minister said.       

As regards the project on construction of a new power unit, Galstyan stresses that in December 2015 a decision was taken to build a 500-600 MW power unit and this issue has been agreed with Rosatom.  

Yuri Semchenkov, Director of the Kurchatov Centre for Nuclear Technologies, has told ArmInfo that Armenia's intention to build a nuclear power unit with a medium-sized capacity is a correct decision, taking into account the small market. "But it would be good for you to build a nuclear power plant with two power units with a capacity of 600MW each," he says.  

Yaroslav Shtrombakh, representative of the Kurchatov Institute, stresses that the Russian Federation gives its preference to power units with a capacity of over 1,000 MW, because the bigger the capacity, the lower the costs are. "But if a decision is taken to build a new power unit in Armenia, we will certainly take part in the project," he says. He notes that the Kurchatov Institute is exploring the features of the reactor vessel of the Armenia NPP and Hydropress is studying the resource. "We will be working in tandem," he stresses.