Experts from the American company Sargent & Lundy visited Yerevan as part of the US State Department’s Fundamental Infrastructure for the Responsible Use of Small Modular Reactor Technology (FIRST) programme. The US Embassy in Armenia, said Sargent & Lundy in cooperation with Armenian officials, had completed a preliminary feasibility study to assess the possibility of replacing the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) with new American technologies for small modular reactors (SMRs).
“The US Embassy in Yerevan welcomes further progress in cooperation between the US and Armenia in the field of civil nuclear energy,” the US Embassy said in a Facebook post. It is also noted that based on the results, four of the most suitable American technologies for SMRs were identified for operation in Armenia. It said technical assistance was aligned with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) best practices, focusing on the highest standards of nuclear safety, security and non-proliferation and considering options for the development of replacement capacity following the decommissioning of the Armenian NPP (ANPP).
The four leading US small modular reactor (SMR) technologies identified for the potential replacement of the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant’s power unit include the NuScale Power Module, GE Hitachi’s BWRX-300, Westinghouse’s AP300 SMR, and X-energy’s Xe-100, as supported by Sargent & Lundy’s SMR portfolio analysis. These technologies represent the core of the US State Department’s civil nuclear framework, focusing on modular designs suitable for integration into Armenia’s power grid.
The ANPP at Metsamor was built in the 1970s with two Soviet-supplied VVER-440-V230 units but was closed following a devastating earthquake in 1988. However, unit 2 was recommissioned with Russian help in 1995 following severe energy shortages. In March 2014, the Armenian government decided to extend the plant’s service life to 2026.
Most of the overhaul (until 2019) was funded by an interstate loan from Russia. In December 2024, following a meeting of the Armenian-Russian intergovernmental commission it was decided to extend the life of the plant until 2036. The Armenian government allocated $65m for the implementation of the programme, which is being undertaken by Russian company Rusatom Service.
Construction of a new nuclear plant has long been part of Armenia’s overall plan, although finance has proved to be an obstacle. In 2024, Pashinyan said it was planning to build a new NPP within 8-10 years, and a preliminary feasibility study for the construction of a new 1200 MWe unit was under consideration. At that time, Gera Sevikyan, Advisor to the ANPP Director General told ArmInfo that a fundamental decision had been made to build a new unit using the Russian TOI reactor with a capacity of 1,200 MWe.
However intense lobbying by the US has since changed the perspective. In February, Armenia and the US signed a bilateral civil nuclear cooperation agreement (a 123 Agreement), and the US pledged a $9bn investment in Armenia’s nuclear energy sector. This includes $5bn in upfront technology exports and $4bn for long-term fuel and maintenance contracts.
Armenia continues to weigh the American SMR proposal alongside modular offers from Russia, South Korea, France, and China. Earlier in May, the director of the fourth department of the CIS countries of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Mikhail Kalugin, said in an interview with TASS that Russia had proposed to Armenia a nuclear power plant project that could meet the needs of the republic “for a century to come”.
