PARLIAMENT APPROVES ARMENIA’S PLANS FOR NEW NUCLEAR POWER REACTOR AT METSAMOR
Andrew Neff
World Markets Research Centre
Global Insight
October 28, 2009
Armenia’s parliament yesterday approved government plans to build a
new nuclear power reactor on the site of the controversial Metsamor
nuclear power plant (NPP). Parliamentarians voted in favour of a plan
for a new 1,200-MW reactor to be built at an estimated cost of $4US-5
billion, with the power unit scheduled to be completed by 2017.
Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Armen Moysisian noted that
the plan is to construct a new power unit, not an altogether new NPP.
Armenia is continuing to operate the 407.5-MW Soviet-era Metsamor
NPP, which has been in operation since 1976, despite safety concerns
following a devastating earthquake that hit Armenia in 1988 and
forced the shutdown of the plant. Armenia re-opened Metsamor in
1995 in the midst of an energy crisis as Azerbaijan implemented an
"energy blockade" against Armenia in response to the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict and Turkey shut its border with Armenia.
Significance:The European Union has long sought to convince Armenia
to halt operations at Metsamor due to safety concerns, but Armenia
has resisted, indicating that it will halt operations at the NPP once
it has alternative energy sources to meet the country’s electricity
needs (seeArmenia: 30 November 2007:). Construction of a new nuclear
reactor at Metsamor could speed the process towards decommissioning the
existing plant, but siting the new reactor in the same earthquake-prone
region of the country, just 30 km west of the capital, Yerevan, will
do little to address safety concerns. Armenia is hoping that the
new reactor will allow it not only to meet the country’s own power
supply needs but also provide electricity for export to neighbouring
countries.