Russia and Armenia agree on prolonging the NPP service life until 2026

NEW DELHI - Dec. 23, 2014 - PRLog -- Russia and Armenia have signed an intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in terms of prolonging the service life of power unit No.2 of the Armenian NPP, reports the State Corporation Rosatom.

A license for the Armenian NPP was issued for 30 years, due September 1, 2016. The agreement aims to prolong the service life by 10 years, until September 2026.

According to the document, until the end of the first quarter of 2015, a thorough inspection of the power unit will be conducted, and then the program for prolonging the service life will be prepared; the program is to be implemented in 2015 and 2016. In September 2016, it is planned to prepare for getting a license, and then the final stage of the work will be completed until 2019.

The parties have agreed that in order to finance the work, Russia will provide Armenia with a loan. The terms and conditions of the loan are currently agreed on by ministries of finance of the two countries.

In November, the Deputy Minister of Energy and Natural Resources of Armenia Ara Simonyan reported that until the end of 2014, Yerevan plans to sign a loan agreement with Russia totaling US$270 million to prolong the service life of the Armenian NPP until 2026.

As had been reported earlier, in September 2013, the Russian President Vladimir Putin stated after negotiations with the head of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan that specialists of the State Corporation Rosatom and Armenian experts have agreed to focus on implementing the project on prolonging the service life of the existing power unit of the Armenian NPP by 10 years, i.e. until 2026.

The Armenian NPP was commissioned in 1980 and shut down in March 1989 after the Spitak earthquake in December 1988. There are Russian reactors of the VVER-440 type (the first generation) at the two NPP power units. At present, the first unit has been shut down. On average, the second unit with the capacity of 407.5 MW produces about 40% of all electricity generated in Armenia.