Ukrainian national grid operator, Ukrenergo, announced that repair work had been completed and that “the station is switching (back) to power supply from the Ukrainian power system.”
After a brief interruption that forced it to rely on emergency generators, Ukraine reconnected the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power facility to its external power source on Monday.
Back-up diesel generators had previously kicked in at the facility in southern Ukraine to keep nuclear fuel cool and prevent a disaster.
Each side held the other responsible for the power outage. A Russian-installed local authority claimed Ukraine had severed a power line, while the Ukrainian state nuclear energy corporation Energoatom said Russian bombardment was to blame.
Now, national grid operator Ukrenergo says the repair work had been completed.
The event upset Rafael Grossi, the chief of the United Nations nuclear energy watchdog, who stated that the plant’s nuclear safety position was “extremely vulnerable” and emphasised the need for international protection.
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“Even though the plant’s six reactors are shut down, they require a steady supply of power to keep the nuclear fuel inside cool and prevent a catastrophe.
“The plant, located in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine near the front lines along the Dnipro River, is Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, and the area has been repeatedly shelled,” he said.
Energoatom claimed it was the plant’s seventh power outage since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Ukraine said the latest Russian attacks had knocked off power to about 250,000 people in the Zaporizhzhia region, but that most of them had been restored.
Ukrenergo reported that electricity had been restored to customers in the Dnipropetrovsk region following nighttime Russian air strikes.
