This is due to the general fuel crisis in Russia
At the temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhya NPP, diesel fuel reserves will be enough for approximately 11 days of autonomous operation, said the Director General of the Russian state corporation Rosatom Alexei Likhachev after consultations with the IAEA delegation in Kaliningrad, writes The Moscow Times. This is reported by Mind, according to the PromPolitInform portal.
According to him, the diesel fuel tanks are currently about 50% full, so they need to be replenished as soon as possible to create a reserve in case of a prolonged loss of external power supply.
Likhachev also claims that since the occupation, the station has switched to emergency power from diesel generators 21 times, and each time the equipment and personnel allegedly worked without failures. There is no independent confirmation of this information.
The statement was made against the backdrop of large-scale fuel problems in Russia. According to Reuters, after a series of strikes by Ukrainian drones on Russian oil refineries, diesel fuel production in the country has decreased by almost 40%, and oil refining volumes, according to Energy Intelligence, have fallen to their lowest level in about two decades.
Due to the shortage, the Russian authorities have already introduced various restrictions on the sale of diesel in dozens of regions. Russian and independent media outlets report limits on gas stations, a ban on the sale of fuel in cans, and supply disruptions, including in occupied Ukrainian territories.
The Zaporizhzhia NPP, located in Energodar, produced about 20% of all electricity in Ukraine before the start of the full-scale war and was the largest nuclear power plant in Europe.
Russian troops seized it in March 2022, and since September of the same year, all six power units have been in a cold shutdown.
The IAEA has repeatedly warned that the loss of external power supply remains one of the main threats to the nuclear safety of the Zaporizhzhia NPP, since even in a cold shutdown mode, the plant requires uninterrupted power supply for the operation of cooling systems and other critical systems.
As a reminder, the Zaporizhzhia NPP has again switched to diesel generator power – the reason was the shutdown of the Ferrosplavna line, which connected the plant to the Ukrainian power grid.
