Ukraine's energy minister said Wednesday that a technical fault at anuclearpower plant in the south of the country has cut power production but he insisted the incident poses no danger.
Volodymyr Demchishin said that the fault at a power-generating unit No. 3 in the Zaporozhiya plant led to a drop in electricity production, and that normal output will be restored by the weekend.
The plant's operator revealed earlier this week that a problem had occurred with a power-generating unit, but concern was provoked Wednesday after Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk referred to an unspecified incident during a Cabinet meeting.
Statenuclearpower station operator Energoatom said damage to a transformer in a power-generating unit on Friday provoked an automatic shutdown in the system. The reactor in the unit has been put into cold shutdown, making chain reactions impossible, Energoatom said.
Energoatom said the risk status at the affected plant, as assessed according the InternationalNuclearand Radiological Event Scale, is currently below zero, meaning there is no significance for safety.
The plant in the city of Enerhodar is the largestnuclearpower plant in Europe, with six power-producing units a 6,000-megawatt generating capacity, accounting for more than one-fifth of electricity production in Ukraine. The affected unit was put into commission in 1986.
Anxieties overnuclearsafety run high in Ukraine, which continues to struggle with the legacy of the Chernobyl disaster of 1986.
The Zaporozhiya incident has compounded a crunch in electricity provision. Power distribution company DTEK Dneproblenergo said Monday that it was introducing a rolling series of blackouts to deal with the shortfall.
Demchishin said that Ukraine will likely be compelled to import power from Russia, despite the dismal state of diplomatic relations.
"In this complicated situation with the energy system balance, this is a necessary step, no matter how politically problematic it might be," he said.
Those supplies could start in the coming few days, Demchishin said.
In Vienna, the International Atomic Energy Agency said it had no immediate comment on the report.
Under an international convention, adopted after the April 1986 Chernobyl accident in what was then SovietUkraine, a country must notify the IAEA of any nuclear accident that can have an impact on other countries.
The explosion and fire at the Chernobyl power plant, the world's worst nuclear accident, was caused by human error and a series of blasts sent a cloud of radioactive dust billowing across northern and western Europe.
Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, have estimated the death toll at only a few thousand as a result of the explosion while the environmental group Greenpeace says the accident will eventually cause up to 93,000 extra cancer deaths worldwide.
Interfax news agency said a 1,000-megawatt reactor was housed in the bloc at Zaporizhzhya where last Friday's accident occurred.
Demchyshyn said the affected bloc had been provisionally disconnected from the electro-energy system though its reactor continued to work normally.
"Its power output is not being used. I think that the problem will be resolved by Friday," he said.
The accident has had a slight impact on Ukraine's energy system, but Demchyshyn said he would ask the major industrial consumers to impose a 'voluntary restriction' in energy consumption.
Ukraine produced more than 60 million tonnes of coal last year, making it self-sufficient in electricity and coal.
Separatist fighting in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions since June has halted production at 66 coal mines, however, leaving Ukrainian power plants without enough raw materials.
http://www.neurope.eu/article/ukraine-says-no-danger-nuclear-plant-incident