Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant still disconnected from Ukraine grid
Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is still disconnected from the grid after fires broke out around the plant.
Ukrainian authorities and international experts have warned of the potential for nuclear catastrophe because of fighting around the facility.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said the world narrowly avoided a “radiation disaster” on Thursday.
Problems with the electricity supply to the plant appear to be unresolved as of Friday morning. The plant was disconnected twice on Thursday when a blaze affected the fourth and last connection into its reactors. Three other lines had already been taken out during the war.
Satellite images published by Ukraine’s Radio Liberty showed plumes of smoke rising near the plant.
Energoatom, Ukraine’s state nuclear agency, said work was under way to restore the connection to the grid and the plant’s power needs were being supplied through a power line from Ukraine’s electricity system.
Energoatom said it could not comment on the safety of the equipment or the systems.
The nuclear plant, Europe’s largest, relies on electricity to keep its reactors cool. Disconnecting it from the grid is dangerous because it raises the risk of catastrophic failure of the electricity-run cooling systems for its reactors and spent fuel rods.
During the outage, the plant still received supplies of electricity from one remaining backup line connected to the nearby conventional power plant, Energoatom said. There were three of these lines before the war but two have been cut.
If all the external connections go down, the plant must rely on diesel-fuelled generators for power. If these break down, engineers only have 90 minutes to stave off dangerous overheating.
A mission from the International Atomic Energy Agency
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