IAEA says shut-down station has cooling water reserves for ‘many months’
A new groundwater well has become operational at Ukraine’s occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station as parts of efforts to secure sufficient cooling water for the six reactor units at the site after the destruction of the Kakhovka reservoir in early June, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said.
The IAEA said staff at Zaporizhzhia are pumping water from the well and are planning to build an additional 10-12 wells in the coming months as an alternative measure to ensure longer term water supply to the site.
The disappearance of much of the water in the Kakhovka reservoir, which Zaporizhzhia had been using for its cooling needs, forced the facility to take steps to protect the bodies of water still available to it, including a large artificial cooling pond next to the site, and to start looking for alternative sources of water, the IAEA said.
The IAEA confirmed the station has sufficient cooling water for many months because the large artificial cooling pond and its other main supply of water, the discharge channel of the nearby coal-fired Zaporizhzhia thermal power plant (ZTPP), remain intact.
Explosions Reported In Recent Weeks
However, IAEA director-general Mariano Grossi said the overall nuclear safety and security situation at Zaporizhzhia “remains precarious” with several explosions in the wider vicinity of the station reported by IAEA staff over the past two weeks.
All six VVER-1000 pressurised water reactor units at Zaporizhzhia have been shut down and disconnected from the grid since September 2022. Units 1-5 are in a cold shutdown state, while Unit 6’s hot shutdown state is being used to provide steam to the facility.
The IAEA said it encourages the installation of an external source of process steam as the safest longer-term solution at the site and has offered technical assistance on the matter.
Russia has been in control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear station, the largest in Europe, since its troops captured it in March 2022. On 6 June 2023, a powerful explosion shattered the wall of the Nova Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro river releasing a massive tidal wave over settlements located downstream.
The Ukrainian government and western allies have accused Russia of blowing up the Nova Kakhovka dam, while Moscow has returned the allegations.
