Afət Ziyadqızı
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has acknowledged for the first time that a modular nuclear power plant may not be sufficient to meet the country’s future electricity needs. He made the remarks after a government meeting.
Operative Information Center-OMM reports that Pashinyan said Armenia had an electricity surplus a year and four months ago, but is now facing an electricity deficit.
The prime minister said energy demand was growing rapidly, particularly amid inquiries from companies operating in the artificial intelligence sector, and that the government was struggling to respond to those requests. Pashinyan, who had previously believed that additional modular plants would not be needed, said the situation had changed. The key question, he said, was how much energy the country would need in 10 years.
As a possible solution, Pashinyan did not rule out building a nuclear power plant with a capacity of 1,000 megawatts.
Armenia is considering proposals from partners including Russia, the United States, France, China and South Korea for the construction of a new nuclear power plant. In February 2026, Armenia and the United States concluded negotiations on a “123 Agreement” in the field of civil nuclear energy. During a visit to Yerevan at the time, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance said Washington was ready to invest $9 billion in the sector and provide small modular reactor technology.
According to sources, Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom has also offered Yerevan several options, including reactors with capacities of 200 and 600 megawatts. On September 29, Rosatom head Alexey Likhachev said the company had submitted a concrete proposal to the Armenian government to build a power unit with a capacity of at least 1 gigawatt.
