MP confirms equipment damage at nuclear power plant

An incident at the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant damaged energy equipment earlier in July, lawmaker Yaroslav Zhelezniak said on July 25.

Zhelezniak cited a response to an official request for information he had sent to the authorities after Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko denied earlier reports.

Ukraine relies on nuclear power for more than half of its energy production. South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant is located in Mykolaiv Oblast.

Reports emerged on July 18 that two transformers had burned down days earlier, leading to one of the reactors being disconnected from the energy network.

Halushchenko denied on July 19 that such an incident had taken place and said that the reports of the damaged transformers at the plant were part of Russia's disinformation strategy.

The information request filed by Zhelezniak revealed that according to state grid operator Ukrenergo, an incident had taken place on July 15.

"Current transformers were damaged," and one power unit with a capacity of 1,000 mW and three power lines were disconnected, Zhelezniak said on Telegram.

As a result, emergency blackout schedules were introduced into Ukraine's south-eastern regions and central regions, including Kyiv, Zhelezniak added.

The Energy Ministry responded that "all nuclear power plants in the territory under (Ukraine's) control are operating normally."

"There was no disconnection of the power transformer," the Energy Ministry said, referring to earlier reports that a power transformer, rather than a current transformer, had been damaged in a fire.

"If such an event were to occur, it would make it impossible to deliver electricity and would indeed lead to the need to shut down the nuclear unit," the ministry added.

"Damage to other equipment does not affect the operation of the unit and may only have a short-term (i.e. within hours) impact on the ability to deliver (power)."

Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, the head of Ukrenergo, said earlier in July that the state of Ukraine's electricity grid is expected to improve in August, when repairs at some of the country's nuclear power plants are completed.

Ukraine began implementing rolling blackouts on May 15, following Russia's spring campaign of strikes against Ukraine's energy infrastructure.

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