The IAEA team based at Ukraine's Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) has been informed that challenges related to the availability of cooling water and off-site power will need to be fully resolved before any of its reactors can be restarted, Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said today.
Those pre-conditions for any future decision to take the ZNPP's six reactors from their current cold shutdown status were communicated to the IAEA team during discussions with the plant and Rostekhnadzor, the Russian regulator which is this week conducting pre-licensing inspection activities at reactor units 1 and 2. The current operating licenses - issued by the Ukrainian State regulator, SNRIU, - are due to expire in December this year and in February 2026, respectively.
Europe's largest nuclear power plant (NPP) has not been generating electricity for almost three years now, and its location on the frontline of the conflict continues to put nuclear safety in constant jeopardy.
Its off-site power situation also remains extremely fragile, with only one power line currently functioning compared with ten before the conflict. In addition, the destruction of the Kakhovka dam in mid-2023 means the ZNPP does not have sufficient water to cool six operating reactors.
"Based on the discussions at the site this week, it is clear that there is a general consensus among all parties that the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant cannot start operating again as long as this large-scale war continues to endanger nuclear safety at the site, which is what the IAEA has also been stating very clearly," Director General Grossi said.
During this week's meeting, the Rostekhnadzor representative said a team of its inspectors are currently conducting a two-week pre-licensing inspection scheduled to end on Friday. The results of the inspection - together with documentation submitted by the ZNPP - will subsequently be evaluated by Rostekhnadzor.
Also this week, the IAEA team has been observing various maintenance activities at the site, including on parts of the safety system of reactor unit 5 and on the unit 4 main transformer - which commenced its planned maintenance period this week.
The team was informed that a pump in one of the site's 11 groundwater wells built after the destruction of the Kakhovka dam is currently not working and will be replaced. The ten remaining wells continue to supply the sufficient flow of water needed for the shutdown reactors.
The IAEA team reported hearing explosions at various distances from the site on most days over the past week.
At Ukraine's other nuclear sites, the IAEA teams at the three operating NPPs - Khmelnytskyy, Rivne and the South Ukraine - and the Chornobyl site all reported hearing air raid alarms over the past week, with the IAEA team at the Khmelnytskyy NPP sheltering at the site yesterday.
The IAEA team based at the Khmelnytskyy NPP observed a two-day emergency exercise to test the response to a site blackout.
Over the past week, one of the three reactor units at the South Ukraine NPP completed its planned refuelling and maintenance outage and returned to full power generation, after which another unit was shut down for maintenance. The refuelling and maintenance outage of the third unit is still ongoing, as is the planned such outage of one Rivne NPP's four reactors.
