New energy block of Armenian nuclear power station will correspond to the norms of seismic protection

YEREVAN, December 8. /ARKA/. “New energy block of Armenian Nuclear Power Station will fully correspond to the norms of seismic protection”, said Alvaro Antonyan, Head of National Service of Seismic Protection of Armenia during the press-conference.

“Every two years we conduct monitoring of the territory on which Armenian Nuclear Power Station is located and we plan to build new energy block. We approve that this region is not seismically dangerous”, said Antonyan. Seismic potential of the given territory corresponds to all the norms of seismic protection and Armenian Nuclear Power Station and the new energy block will function normally.

Armenia plans to build new block of Armenian Nuclear Power Station with the capacity of about 1000 MVt and according to the data of the Ministry of Energy of Armenia, the given project can cost about $5 billion. With the aim of involvement of foreign capital for the implementation of the project in 2006, Parliament of Armenia legislatively changed state monopoly of possession of new nuclear blocks.

Construction works will start in 2011. Armenian Nuclear Power Station is located near the city Metsamor (about 20-30 km to the South from Yerevan). The station is operating since 1976 and currently only second block of the station with the capacity of 407.5 MVt is functioning. Financial flows of Armenian Nuclear Power Station are under the trust management of Open JSC “INTER RAO EEC” since September 2003 up to 2013 the owner of which is Russian state corporation “Rosatom”. By the assessment of the specialists, Armenian Nuclear Power Station can function till 2016.  --0—