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Reactor at existing site could be completed within 10 years The existing Kozloduy nuclear station in Bulgaria. Courtesy Kozloduy NPP. The Bulgarian cabinet has approved a report on the possibility of building a new nuclear power unit at the existing Kozloduy nuclear power station in the northwest of the country, with completion possible within 10 years, the government’s press service said.

According to the report, prepared by the Bulgarian ministry of energy, a second site at Kozloduy has already received a positive environmental impact assessment from the regulator. The EIA included Russian VVER and US AP-1000 pressurised water reactor technology.

The report noted that construction of a seventh unit at Kozloduy, which has four shut-down units and two in operation, could use equipment from the Belene nuclear project.

In October 2020, the government gave permission to state-owned Bulgarian Energy Holding (BEH), which owns Kozloduy, to negotiate with US nuclear companies about deploying a new reactor at Kozloduy.

A working group was formed and a deadline set for the report of 31 January 2021.

Bulgarian energy minister Temenuzhka Petkova said the working group had been in communication with US-based Westinghouse, who have said they would “support the realisation of a seventh unit at Kozloduy using existing equipment we own from the Belene nuclear project”.

The government press service said the ministry of energy should now prepare a financial model for the project and carry out a legal analysis of the national, European and international legal framework. The ministry should also continue to examine the option of deploying small modular reactors, it said.

What Next For Belene?

It remains unclear what the Kozloduy proposal means for the two-unit Belene project, proposed for a new site about 160km east of Kozloduy and set to use Russia-supplied nuclear technology.

The Bulgarian government had been calling for investors to join the project, including Russia’s Rosatom, China’s CNNC and South Korea’s KHNP. France’s Framatone and US-based General Electric had also been interested to provide equipment of the project.

Kozloduy, on the Danube River in northwest Bulgaria, is the country’s only nuclear power station. It houses six reactor units, but only two VVER-1000 PWRs are in commercial operation with four older VVERs under decommissioning. The operational Kozloduy-5 and -6 supplied 37% of Bulgaria’s electricity in 2019.

In 2012, Bulgaria began talking about a seventh reactor unit at Kozloduy. This was at a time when the Belene project had been halted because of financing concerns and a failure to find investors. A proposed expansion of Kozloduy received a positive environmental impact assessment the same year, according to earlier reports.

US-based Westinghouse was at the time invited to build a single AP1000 pressurised water reactor unit at Kozloduy. Negotiations began on a shareholders’ agreement, but were never concluded.

After losing an international arbitration case to Russia in 2016, Bulgaria had to pay €600m to Russian suppliers for the bulk of the nuclear equipment ordered for Belene. As a result, in 2018, the government formally revived the project.

With the revival of the Belene project, it seemed the government had sidelined new-build plans for Kozloduy. However, in October 2020 prime minister Boiko Borisov announced his government might be looking to revive the project.

Later in October, Sofia and Washington signed what they called “key documents” related to nuclear energy for civilian purposes.

Date: Friday, 22 January 2021
Original article: nucnet.org/news/uncertainty-over-belene-as-sofia-approves-ministry-report-on-new-kozloduy-unit-1-4-2021