Two substations damaged in satellite city of Zaporizhzhia NPP - IAEA

In the past few days, two substations were damaged in the temporarily occupied city of Enerhodar, where most of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) staff live.

According to Ukrinform, this is said in a report on the website of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

“The city where most staff of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) live was left without electricity for 16 hours over the weekend after a second sub-station in the area sustained damage and was taken out of operation,” the report says.

The IAEA team of experts stationed at the ZNPP on Saturday visited the site of the latest affected sub-station, Raduga, in the city of Enerhodar “to observe damage to one of its two transformers that the plant said was caused by a drone attack the previous evening.”  The substation was used to partially supply five districts of Enerhodar with electricity. On Wednesday, another substation in Enerhodar, Luch, was destroyed.

“Two days after visiting Enerhodar to assess the extent of damage to the Luch sub-station, the IAEA experts yesterday saw electric components and other drone debris at the Raduga sub-station, as well as an unexploded device on the ground near the damaged transformer,” the report says.

The substation was used to partially supply five districts of Enerhodar with electricity. It is noted that on Wednesday another substation in Enerhodar, Luch, was destroyed.

Representatives of the Russian occupation authorities at the scene said that a hole in the transformer had caused a cooling oil leak that prompted the sub-station to shut down. They added that the oil spill had been covered by sand and that repairs were under way, which were completed later in the afternoon.

 “The IAEA experts did not see any oil traces on the transformer itself. The sub-station appeared to have suffered less damage than the transformer at the Luch sub-station and there was no fire or firefighters in the area,” the report says.

As was the case with the damage to the Luch sub-station, the loss of electricity from Raduga did not directly impact the two power lines that are still available for the ZNPP. The plant continues to receive the off-site electricity it needs for cooling its shutdown reactors from its last remaining 750 kilovolt (kV) main power line and the last 330 kV backup power line.

As reported, ZNPP has been under Russian occupation since March 4, 2022. Over this time, the Russians have repeatedly violated nuclear safety principles by deploying military equipment on the nuclear plant's territory, mining its area and terrorizing the staff. The invaders ignore the IAEA decision to return ZNPP to Ukraine’s Energoatom control.