Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant Reconnected to External Power After Three Weeks on Emergency Diesel Generators

Ukrainian power engineers restored the 330-kV Ferosplavna-1 line to the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant on September 7, ending an outage that began August 20 when military activity north of the Dnipro River severed the plant's sole remaining connection 12. It was the 26th time since the war began that the plant lost off-site power. During the nearly three-week outage, operators had cut diesel generators back to two running units and cycled cooling pumps on and off to conserve fuel, prompting IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi to warn that no nuclear plant should have to throttle its cooling systems this way 1. Energoatom said the three-day repair was completed under a local ceasefire brokered by the IAEA, the seventh such truce negotiated by Grossi during the war 13. The plant's consumption stood at 11 MW after reconnection, and its backup diesel generators, which had powered cooling systems and safety functions throughout the outage, were shut down and switched to standby 23. Energoatom reported no violations of safe operating limits and described radiation levels at the site as stable and consistent with natural background 3.