The Armenian government may abandon its ambitious plans to build a new nuclear power station in place of the aging plant at Metsamor, Justice Minister Davit Harutiunian said on Tuesday.
President Serzh Sarkisian pledged to replace Metsamor, which generates roughly a third of Armenia’s electricity, by a modern facility meeting safety standards shortly after taking office in 2008. The project never got off the drawing board as his government failed to attract billions of dollars in funding needed for the new plant’s construction. The government decided instead to extend the life of Metsamor’s 420-megawatt reactor by 10 years, until 2027.
“We will have a new nuclear plant if it is cost-effective in terms of [electricity] tariffs,” Harutiunian told reporters. “Just imagine a possibility that it turns out tomorrow that modern technologies can generate the same amount of energy without a nuclear plant and that nuclear energy … is much more expensive for consumers. Which path should we opt for? Of course, modern technologies.”
Asked whether that means the government now does not rule out the possibility of giving up the idea of a new nuclear plant, Harutiunian said: “You correctly understand my and my government’s position.” The government will closely monitor international energy “trends” and eventually decide “which model will best suit our consumers,” added the minister.
As recently as in July, Deputy Prime Minister Vache Gabrielian insisted that the government remains committed to the expensive nuclear project. He said the government has only revised the would-be plant’s design capacity from 1,000 megawatts to 600 megawatts.
Yerevan will commit to “the closure and safe decommissioning” of the Metsamor plant in an extensive agreement with the European Union which is due to be signed next month. The draft agreement sets no specific time frames for the plant’s shutdown. It also acknowledges “the need for its replacement with new capacity to ensure the energy security of the Republic of Armenia.”
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