Russia could have repaired the power lines in its territory and organized a backup power source for the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, which is now disconnected from external power supply, but Russian specialists have not done this. This was stated in a conversation with The Insider by nuclear physicist Andrey Ozharovsky. According to him, many questions arise for Rosatom, including whether the station has enough personnel to service it and whether fuel and lubricants and backup diesel generators have been stolen.
“At the moment, none of the reactors of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant is in the mode of generating electricity. Five reactors are in a state of so-called cold shutdown. That is, they do not require as much electricity to maintain. And one of the reactors, as far as I know, is now in a state of hot shutdown, that is, there is a nuclear reaction at a minimum level to generate steam, heat for their own needs. This means that the demand for electricity is not so high, and, most likely, they can really be provided for tens of days by standby diesel generators, which are located, which is confirmed, at the site of the Zaporizhzhya NPP.
Nevertheless, there are many ambiguities. Firstly, it is not clear what reserves of fuel, lubricating oils and human resources, that is, engineers who service these standby diesel generators, are currently available at ZNPP. Let me remind you that Russia and Rosatom consider this station to be Russian. The question of resources should be addressed to those who now control the station, that is, Russia.
Secondly, last week there were reports, confirmed by the International Atomic Energy Agency, about the evacuation of the population of the city of Energodar, that is, everyone who should serve the nuclear power plant. In a number of media there were reports not just about the evacuation, but about the flight – apparently, they are expecting a Ukrainian counteroffensive. Questions follow from this: are there enough personnel there, were fuels and lubricants stolen, and the backup diesel generators themselves, since these are quite mobile devices. This is something that can be bought and sold, well, or simply cut and scrapped in the worst case. This requires confirmation, there is no clarity here.
There is still no confirmation from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about the loss of the last power line, but I remind you that the IAEA has repeatedly expressed concern, recognized the problem of staff shortages. It was extremely concerned that only one transmission line provided external power supply – this is the line that is now, according to Energoatom, damaged and disabled. The IAEA was simply at a loss as to why Russia could not repair inside, on Russian controlled territory, the 330 kilovolt power transmission line from the Zaporizhia NPP to the Zaporizhzhya Thermal Plant, which could be the backup source of energy. This is not done now.
When a blackout occurs at the station, backup diesel generators should be connected, they should automatically turn on within a few minutes. Since the nuclear power plant is not currently in power generation mode, they have a fairly long period of time until backup diesel generators can be connected. That is, now there is no such crisis with energy supply. That's when the station was captured with a fight, on the night of March 3-4 last year, the situation was much more serious, since the reactors worked and gave out electricity to the energy system of Ukraine. Then, in the event of a shutdown, in the event of a loss of an external source of power supply, a catastrophe could occur within five hours if the reactor at power is not cooled from external sources. It is shut down normally and then does not cool down, within two hours the melting of the reactor begins, within five hours the reactor vessel and concrete structures are melted, the melt, like in Chernobyl "elephant's foot", goes down into the aquifers, and a steam explosion occurs.
As for the possibility of organizing a power line in the direction of Crimea, this entire land corridor is under the fire control of Ukraine to one degree or another. There are two problems with the power transmission line to Crimea: these are distribution substations and power transmission lines. Both of these objects – both power lines and substations – are rather huge stationary objects that were destroyed during military clashes. Therefore, it was simply technically impossible to engage in the transmission of electricity to the Crimea. If there were such plans, they were voiced by various experts. Purely technically, in order to transfer electricity from the Zaporizhzhya NPP to the Crimea, one more thing is required. Now ZNPP is synchronized with the energy system of Ukraine. Synchronization is a mode of operation of alternators, it is different in different countries. Ukraine has its own, synchronized with Europe, and Russia has its own phase of fluctuations.
If there had been an intention to connect the Zaporizhzhya NPP to the power system controlled by Russia, it would have needed to be out of sync with the power system of Ukraine, which, in fact, happened now due to the fact that the transmission line was damaged. It can be assumed that the damage to the power transmission line will force Russia to synchronize the generators of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant with the Russian power system. But there is no power line for this, and the reactors are shut down. It seems to me that Russia will not be able on its own, without the help of Ukraine, to put the power units into operation for a number of reasons. Although the reactors are of the same type, they are old Soviet iron, like at the Kalinin and Rostov stations in Russia, but Ukraine has deeply modernized the control and protection system. There are automatic process control systems, the block control panel at the Zaporozhye station is different from, for example, Rostov, and, roughly speaking, the hardware is also different, the control system is different, so Russian specialists may simply not figure it out. Maybe right now they cannot turn on the reactors without the help of Ukrainian specialists. The IAEA confirms that there is a lot of pressure on the staff, the remaining employees are forced to sign contracts with Rosatom, not everyone wants this.”
Olga Kosharna, a member of the Board of the State Inspectorate for Nuclear Regulation of Ukraine, stated that it is not known whether mobile diesel generators and mobile pumps remained at the ZNPP site or whether they were stolen during the “evacuation” that began on May 5-6.
“Evil tongues say that the engineers at the central office of Energoatom, instead of calculating the options for cooling the reactor in the event of a diesel generator failure, are inactive. Because the management of Energoatom is passed through a polygraph, bought with the advent of the Snow Tigers team. Therefore, engineers not only do not show initiative, but are even afraid to think about topics that are not brought down “from above”, so that the polygraph does not reveal their disloyalty. Instead of engineering and technical assistance from the central office of nuclear power plants, they solve their own problems, including those with nuclear and radiation protection, defense, and protection of playgrounds.”
On the morning of May 22, the Russian military fired at the ZNPP territory, as a result, the last high-voltage power transmission line, Dneprovskaya (750 kV), from which the ZNPP fed its own needs, was disconnected. The Ukrainian Energoatom stated that this is the seventh time since the beginning of the Russian occupation of the plant (March 4, 2022), when the ZNPP goes into blackout mode. The occupation administration of ZNPP confirmed the shutdown of external power supply, without specifying the reasons, and assured that the radiation background at the plant is normal.