Technicians have successfully completed repairs to a power transmission line near Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), carried out under security guarantees provided by both sides as part of a local ceasefire brokered by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). This was stated by IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi, as reported by UNN.
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According to him, this is the third time in recent months that temporary truce agreements, coordinated and monitored by the IAEA, have allowed the restoration of vital power transmission lines for nuclear safety that were damaged during the military conflict. In late October, such a "window of silence" allowed the completion of the tenth and longest complete loss of off-site power supply to the ZNPP since the conflict began.
This time, it allowed the restoration of power transmission between the ZNPP's switchyards and the neighboring Zaporizhzhia Thermal Power Plant two weeks after it was disconnected due to hostilities. ... This connection is important as it offers a key route for electricity supplied by one of the ZNPP's two available power lines – the 330 kilovolt (kV) line.
It is indicated that under the supervision of the IAEA team based at the Zaporizhzhia NPP, repair work, which began on Sunday morning, was completed on Monday afternoon, after the damaged power line and a separate problem with the autotransformer of the Zaporizhzhia NPP's switchyard were fully eliminated and restored.
The successful repairs carried out this week, as well as in October and November, demonstrate that an organization like the IAEA can work with both sides of a conflict to achieve a common goal: preventing a nuclear accident, which would not be in anyone's interest.
He thanked "both the Russian Federation and Ukraine for their constructive cooperation with us, which made this possible."
"As a result, we have been able to take a crucial step in support of nuclear safety. However, the overall situation at the Zaporizhzhia NPP and other nuclear facilities in Ukraine remains unstable, and our work is far from over," Grossi summarized.
Recall
Earlier, at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, restoration work was completed and the external power transmission line was connected to the energy system.