Mezamor nuclear power plant

location

Coordinates

40 ° 10 '57 " N , 44 ° 8' 33" E Coordinates: 40 ° 10 '57 " N , 44 ° 8' 33" E

Country:

Armenia

Data

Owner:

Ministry of Energy of the Republic of Armenia

Operator:

Joint Stock Company Armenian Nuclear Power Plant

Commercial operation:

Oct 6, 1977

Active reactors (gross):

1 (408 MW)

Decommissioned reactors (gross):

1 (408 MW)

Energy fed in in 2010:

2,286,544 GWh

Energy fed in since commissioning:

78,654.83 GWh

Was standing:

May 16, 2010

The data source of the respective entries can be found in the documentation .

Mezamor ( Armenian Մեծամոր ատոմակայան , also Medzamor , English transcription: Metsamor ), at the time of the Armenian SSR it was called the Oktemberjan nuclear power plant , is the only nuclear power plant in Armenia and the entire Caucasus . It is named after the nearby modern city of Mezamor ( Armenian Մեծամոր ) or the nearby river Mezamor , from which the nuclear power plant also draws its cooling water, and is located 30 kilometers west of the capital Yerevan , in the northeast of the Armavir province .

history

The nuclear power plant consists of two pressurized water reactors of the Soviet-type VVER -440/270 (a version of the VVER-440/230). Version 270 also has seismic improvements. Unit 1 became critical for the first time on December 15, 1976 , unit 2 on January 5, 1980. The first network synchronization of the first unit took place in 1976, from unit 2 in 1980. In December 1976, the first unit ran at full rated power for the first time , the second block in November 1977.

The reason for the construction was the poverty of fossil fuels of the Armenian SSR. The owner is the Armenian Ministry of Energy. The nuclear power plant is operated by the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant joint stock company .

In 1989, both reactors had to be temporarily shut down after the Spitak earthquake . This happened under political pressure from the United States, because the reactors 90 km away from the epicenter survived the earthquake relatively unscathed. At the time, due to the earthquake risk in the region, they were built with improved technical robustness against it. Mezamor-2 was put back into operation in 1996 after some improvement measures, carried out with Russian help, whereas Mezamor-1 was finally shut down.

On June 4, 2014, the Mezamor-2 operating license was extended to June 10, 2019; Russia is helping Armenia with repair work.

safety

Mezamor is considered to be a rather unsafe nuclear power plant because it is not only technically out of date, but is also located in a region that is highly prone to earthquakes . One of the few advantages over other light water reactor types is the shut-off reactor cooling circuit: Should a leak occur, it can be isolated with valves, which is not possible with other reactor types due to the higher hydrodynamic forces and the smaller water inventory relative to the output (they are exclusively dependent on emergency cooling). The plant generates around 40% of the electricity generated in Armenia and allows the state to export up to 150 megawatts to Georgia . According to the Armenian government, a prerequisite for the shutdown of Mezamor is the construction of a new reactor with a capacity of at least 1000 MW, which is estimated to cost four billion US dollars.

The contract for the dismantling of the decommissioned reactor 1 has been received by a consortium led by the German Nukem Technologies GmbH and to which the German state group Energiewerke Nord GmbH belongs, which is entrusted with the dismantling of the former GDR power plants Greifswald and Rheinsberg in Germany .

To date (July 2015) there are intentions, but no concrete plans for a new reactor. With the help of the Russian government, Armenia is planning to have Metsamor 2 retrofitted in order to enable a service life extension. An agreement on this was signed in December 2014, and in February 2015 an agreement was signed on a Russian loan that is said to be worth $ 30 million.

With the retrofits, Metsamor 2 could continue to operate until 2026 and would therefore be taken off the grid much later than the identical units in the EU countries, Greifswald nuclear power plant in Germany, Kozloduj nuclear power plant in Bulgaria and Bohunice nuclear power plant in Slovakia, all of which are already due to massive safety concerns were taken off the network.

The cooling towers of the nuclear power plant

Accidents

On October 15, 1982 there was a short circuit in a boron pump in Block 1. The electrical protection of the pump did not work, which is why the cable and the motor overheated. As a result, a fire broke out in several places on the cable. The smoke reached the control room in the block. The fire jumped over to four parallel cables and spread further. The destruction of several control cables resulted in a number of faults. The fire alarm in the cable ducts went off, but the extinguishing function failed. The fire destroyed the power lines of the diesel generators and also the power cables to the external power grid. The fire caused a total failure of the power plant. Power lines were improvised in order to be able to dissipate the decay heat from the reactor. The smoke-filled control room was "operated" by the operators (gas masks missing) rushing in one by one, performing brief manipulations and rushing out again. The machine house burned down completely. After the fire, a manual shutdown system was built into the boron pumps and the cables were given a fire-proof cover. The fire protection system has also been improved. In addition, the cables were checked more frequently.

Others

In 2011, National Geographic claimed that mezamor may be the most dangerous nuclear power plant in the world today. According to photographs by photographer Stefano Morelli, who visited the area in January 2016, around 10,000 people live here, despite all the risks, including 1,000 employees of the nuclear power plant.

The World Nuclear Association , according to the Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant produced in 2016, 31 percent of total electricity of the Republic of Armenia.

Data of the reactor blocks

The Mezamor nuclear power plant has a total of two blocks :

Reactor block	Reactor type	net power	gross power	start of building	Network synchronization	Commercialization of essential operation	switching off processing
Mezamor 1	WWER-440/270	376 MW	408 MW	07/01/1969	12/22/1976	10/06/1977	02/25/1989
Mezamor 2	WWER-440/270	376 MW	408 MW	07/01/1975	05/01/1980	05/03/1980	(Planned for 2026)