MOSCOW, May 21. /TASS/. Rosatom needs to solve four problems to launch Zaporozhye NPP, the state corporation’s General Director Alexey Likhachev said during the government hour in the Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian parliament.
"Everyone dreams of relaunching the plant (ZNPP - TASS). We have developed a plan to bring Zaporozhye NPP to full capacity. We need to solve four main issues," he said.
According to him, these four problems are ensuring the plant’s water supply, repairing and connecting the power grid, resolving the issue of fuel (US fuel is loaded into some reactors) and identifying energy consumers.
The ZNPP, located in Energodar, has six power units with a total capacity of 6 GW. It is Europe’s largest nuclear power generation facility. At the end of February 2022, the facility was seized by Russian forces. Since then, Ukrainian military units have periodically shelled both residential areas in Energodar and the plant itself using drones, heavy artillery, and multiple rocket launchers. All six units of the Zaporozhye NPP are in a cold shutdown mode and are not producing electricity.
Since 2022, the Ukrainian armed forces have been shelling both residential areas of Energodar and the plant’s territory with artillery and attacking with drones. Since September 2022, experts from the IAEA mission have been permanently stationed at the plant. Its line-up is regularly changed by rotation.