Situation at Ukraine's Zaporizhye NPP 'Under Control'

Ukrainian Energy Minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn speaks to journalists after a press conference on a reported accident at Zaporizhye nuclear power station, in south-east Ukraine, in Kiev, Ukraine, 3 December 2014. Photo by EPA/BGNES

Workers have begun an emergency repair at Europe's biggest nuclear power plant Zaporizhye (Ukraine), with "no issues" registered at the reactor where a short-circuit forced authorities to shut down parts of the plant.

Ukraine's Energy Ministry has also explained an imbalance of power supply is to be observed due to both the emergency repair of Unit 3 and "inadequate supplies of coal in the power plants' waherouses," CNN quotes the institution as saying.

The accident which occurred last week but was reported Wednesday (December 3) has resulted in power shortages across Ukraine, but the situation is gradually returning to normality.

Energy Minister Demchyshyn is quoted by the Huffington Post as saying he is to ask major industrial consumers to impose a "voluntary restriction" in energy consumption.

Earlier authorities announced that a failure at the Auxiliary Power Unit's voltage transformer had led to the development.

Interfax news agency commented briefly after the accident was reported by Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk that the situation had "worsened" the energy crisis in which Ukraine has lately been caught.

Kiev is finding it difficult to meet the country's energy demand due to a months-long disruption of Russian gas supplies amid a recently-settled, but fierce dispute.

Zaporozhye, Europe's largest and the world's fifth-largest NPP, is about 520 kilometres southeast of Chernobyl, where the major nuclear emergency in history took place in April 1986, with a reactor exploding and the aftermath claiming 4000 lives and leaving 70 000 disabled due to radiation exposure.  

Zaporozhye, which has been operational since 1984, has six 1000-megawatt reactors.

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