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Energy

Pashinyan: a modular reactor will not be enough as Armenia's surplus turns to deficit

Armenia had surplus electricity a year and 4 months ago and now has a deficit because the investment programmes already approved absorb all of it, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told a briefing on Thursday, and the modular nuclear plant the government had settled on will most likely not be enough. He also said Yerevan has had no signal of a rise in the price of Russian gas.

By CAW Staff1 October 2026
A close-up of a single analogue electricity meter with its disc spinning.

"A year and 4 months ago Armenia was a state with surplus electricity, and we had to think about where we would consume our energy," Pashinyan said, in Armenpress's account at 14:25 Yerevan time. "A year later Armenia has turned into a state with an electricity deficit." The cause, he said, is the scale of the investment programmes already approved, which use up the surplus in full, and he did not put the deficit down to the AI factories.

"I have said dozens of times that we need nothing but a modular nuclear plant. That was our position," he said. "But now, with these changes, we must understand that a modular one will most likely not be enough for us."

"A year later Armenia has turned into a state with an electricity deficit."

News.am's account of the briefing, at 15:04, has him saying the country must look 10 years ahead, that experts are studying the size and that the sooner the decision comes the better, and in the outlet's paraphrase he did not rule out a 1,000 MW plant.

The line moves the choice Rosatom's chief heard on Tuesday. Pashinyan told Alexei Likhachev on 29 September that the new unit would be chosen on price, quality, safety, timing and guarantees, Rosatom's study of a 1,200 MW unit is already in Yerevan, Armenia is in talks with 5 countries on the plant, and Metsamor's second unit is being extended to 2036.

Gas was the other question. "When there is a signal, when a situation arises, we will think about it," Pashinyan said of a possible rise in the price of Russian gas, adding that the government discusses scenarios every year and has no such signal now, Armenpress reported at 13:12. Two prices stand on the record for the current supply, $165 at the border by the Security Council secretary's account and $177.5 to the end of 2026 by Interfax's line, and the gas flowed again through Georgia on 25 September after 10 days of pipeline work.

At the government session the same day he said the government must carry public trust in peace through to its final result, the signing and ratification of the peace agreement with Azerbaijan, and that the current stage is an intermediate one, News.am reported at 15:00.

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