Ukraine’s State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate (SNRI) on 19 September granted nuclear utility Energoatom a licence to operate unit 1 of Zaporozhe NPP beyond the design service life, until 23 December, 2025. The 30-year design service life if Zaporozhye-1 expired on 23 December 2015 and the unit was taken offline the next day. During the life extension outage, the equipment that had exhausted its lifetime performance was replaced, the technical condition of the power unit was reassessed, measures to ensure seismic stability were implemented and other activities undertaken.
The SNRI Collegium on September 13 took the decision on feasibility of extending service life of Zaporozhye-1 beyond the design service life and on 16. September 16 a decision was made to issue a separate permit to restart the reactor of Zaporozhye-1. Connection to the grid will follow.
