Keeping up with maintenance essential for Ukrainian plants: IAEA

Regular, comprehensive maintenance is essential at all nuclear power plants around the world to prevent the degradation of reactor structures, systems, and components, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said in his latest update on the situation in Ukraine, and has been an especially difficult task to implement during the war. "These are areas which are of vital importance for sustainable nuclear safety and security, even though they are often overshadowed by more urgent difficulties, including the extremely vulnerable off-site power situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant," he said.

Over the past week, the IAEA's team at Zaporizhzhia have conducted several 'walkdowns' focused on monitoring maintenance activities across the site, as well as the availability of necessary spare parts for the plant. They observed ongoing maintenance of the components of the main electrical transformer of reactor unit 3, which were being disassembled for servicing, as well as monitoring planned maintenance activities in the reactor hall and the nuclear auxiliary building of unit 6, including the refuelling machine crane and the heat exchangers. The team was also able to observe the maintenance of some electrical as well as instrumentation and control equipment.

They did not report any issues related to nuclear safety or security related to the observed maintenance activities, but the team "was once again not granted access" the western part of unit 6's turbine hall, the agency said. Over the past week, the IAEA experts have continued to hear explosions and gunfire at various distances from the site, it added.

IAEA experts stationed at the Khmelnitsky, Rivne and South Ukraine nuclear power plants and the Chernobyl site also reported that nuclear safety and security is being maintained. The teams continued to report air raid alarms heard from the sites.

One of the three reactors at the South Ukraine plant has successfully restarted planning a planned maintenance and refuelling outage, and a planned outage at another unit is nearing completion. South Ukraine unit 2, which had been temporarily shut down following electrical protections due to a transformer problem in the 330 kV open switchyard, was restarted after the electrical connection was restored and returned to full power just over 24 hours after being shut down.