ZAPORIZHZHIA OCCUPATION | COVER STORY


Above left: Destruction of nearby training centre buildings bought the threat of conflict damage to the nuclear reactors Above right: War at a nuclear site is no longer unthinkable Photo credits: Energoatom


Before the invasion, for the first time, all the county’s


nuclear units were generating electricity simultaneously. Whereas previously some units were always in outage as a normal element of optimising repair and maintenance resources – human and material – all the units were successfully connected to the grid to meet peak winter energy consumption. Zaporizhzhia and the three other operating nuclear plants in Ukraine are all managed by a single national nuclear utility – Energoatom. The day before the invasion on 23 February, Ukraine’s power grid was disconnected from Russia and Belarus as scheduled, to confirm the possibility of separate operation and subsequent connection to the European grid. In the event the test conditions turned out to be much more difficult than expected.


Invasion and the outbreak of war As hostilities broke out the destruction of industrial infrastructure saw electricity consumption in Ukraine drop sharply and some reactor units had to be disconnected from the grid and put in reserve. Power lines also began to turn off. Grid automation normally copes with such events, but they can affect the safety of a nuclear plant. After all, a plant not only generates electricity and delivers it to the grid, but also consumes it. Where units are disconnected, a nuclear power plant uses significant quantities of power and for a long time, for the pumps used to cool down the reactors for example. The blackout of a plant means safety-related systems are powered by emergency diesel generators, which must successfully start and operate to supply external power for a minimum of three days. For this reason, routine loss of power tests are regularly


conducted with loss of power to safety system channels and the start-up of emergency generators. Tests covering loss of power to an entire unit are also carried out at first start-up, but tests with loss of power to a whole station, especially a multi-unit one, are never carried out. Theoretically, after the disconnection of a unit from the grid, the turbogenerator can and should switch to a very low power level and supply the station’s electric needs. But, in this scenario, the reactor also operates at a low power level, and in general, the regime is dynamically unstable and cannot be considered satisfactory for the long-term.


Within a few days of the invasion of Ukraine , all major


settlements to the south of Energodar were occupied and Russian military equipment appeared in nearby villages. The plant staff and town residents hoped that the plant, and hence the town, would not be occupied. After all, why capture a large nuclear facility? One explanation did subsequently emerge. During a conference on the physical protection of nuclear materials, Russian representatives stated that the Zaporizhzhia nuclear station was seized “to save the station from Ukrainian Nazis who were about to commit a terrorist attack”. On 2 March, the Russian military approached the town, but the townspeople went en masse to the checkpoint and barricaded the entrance to the town. After a resolute refusal to admit them, the Russian forces withdrew, but the next afternoon a column of Russian military equipment, including tanks, entered the town and moved towards the nuclear plant. Plant personnel moved to the units and a shelter. It was a shelter that had been designed to protect personnel in the event of a radiation accident, not for bombardment with heavy weapons. The standoff continued all night. A detachment of the


National Guard of Ukraine tried to resist and as a result, tank assaults were launched on the station buildings. Rockets crisscrossed the night sky and explosions rocked the station. Attempts to reason with the occupiers on a loud plant-wide communication system and to inform them about the potential nuclear danger associated with attacking the plant were unsuccessful. While one unit remained in operation, two were urgently disconnected from the grid during the assault. In horror everyone waited for a potential nuclear


catastrophe that the whole world could watch live on the plant’s surveillance cameras. A fire started in the training building, which, fortunately, did not affect the full-scale simulators. Fire trucks and ambulances were blocked from attending.


By the morning of 4 March, the Russian military had


completely seized the station territory and began to smash the offices of the administrative building. A new dark era of nuclear power had begun. For the operators of the units, this was the most terrible shift in their working lives – anticipating events spiralling U


www.neimagazine.com | June 2022 | 19


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