Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant Back on Backup Generators After Losing External Power
The Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southeastern Ukraine lost its external power supply on Sunday and is again using diesel generators to cool its reactors. The IAEA says fuel reserves should last about two weeks.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine, which is under Russian control, lost its external electricity supply on Sunday and is again relying on backup generators to cool its reactors, according to the plant's management and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN's nuclear watchdog. The situation matters because the plant produces no electricity itself but needs power from two external lines to keep nuclear fuel cool.
What happened
The IAEA said the plant went off-site power after the Ferosplavna power line disconnected. The cause and location of the disconnection are not yet known. The plant currently has enough diesel fuel to run a limited number of emergency generators for roughly two weeks.
The plant's Russian-installed management said the line was shut down by "automatic protection". It said radiation levels at the site and in the surveillance zone were normal and that staff were monitoring equipment parameters.
Background
The IAEA said on Oct. 23 that the main Dniprovska line remained unavailable. In early September, a local ceasefire brokered by the agency took effect so repairs could restore external power; the plant had been without it since Aug. 20.
Russia seized the plant, Europe's largest with six reactors, in the first weeks of the full-scale war that began with its February 2022 invasion. Moscow and Kyiv have since regularly accused each other of actions that endanger nuclear safety.
Attacks on energy facilities
Ukrainian power company DTEK said a Russian overnight attack on energy facilities in the Dnipropetrovsk region left more than 600,000 people without electricity. Russia's Defense Ministry said it hit energy infrastructure used by the Ukrainian military, a container ship southwest of Odesa and a substation in the Zhytomyr region. Kursk region governor Alexander Khinshtein said a Ukrainian drone attack killed a 40-year-old man in a village there.
