On 15 May, 2021 at 00:25 the ANPP Unit 2 shutdown started and at 11:45 the unit was disconnected from the RA power grid. The nuclear power plant was shut down for annual outage-2021 which will last 141 days owing to an unprecedented large scope of activities of the final stage of the ANPP Unit 2 life extension program.

The following main activities are scheduled to be performed during outage-2021:

• reactor general overhaul with complete core unloading,
• activities on modernization of the sealing surfaces of the reactor facility upper unit,
• reactor vessel annealing,
• inspection of the reactor vessel metal prior to and after the annealing,
• maintenance of the spent fuel storage pond (2SFSP) and pressurizer (2Prz),
• general overhaul of the steam generators and eddy current testing of the steam generator tubing,  
• inspection of the composite welds of steam generators,
• routine maintenance of the reactor coolant pumps,
• modernization of the emergency core cooling system,
• general overhaul of the pressurizer safety valves and steam generator safety valves,
• routine maintenance of turbines №3 and №4,
• intermediate maintenance of generator №3,
• general overhaul of generator №4,
• routine maintenance of autotransformer АТ-1,
• modernization of the in-core monitoring system,  
• replacement of instrumentation and control equipment complete sets, replacement of instrumentation cables within the boundaries of the steam generator compartment,
• installation of additional parameters of the computer information system.

The employees of almost all the departments of the plant, as well as about 400 specialists from Russia, Belarus, Croatia,  Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine and other countries, who have an extensive experience of performing maintenance of NPP systems and equipment, will participate in the scheduled activities of outage-2021. The specialists of the RA Committee for Nuclear Safety Regulation play a special role in this process.

The unit start-up is scheduled for 2 October, 2021.