Bulgaria N-plant gets ready to close old reactors
Date: 17-Dec-01
Country: BULGARIA
Author: Anna Mudeva
The plant is also modernising another two 440 MW reactors to convince the EU that they could be closed later than the Union's deadline of 2006, Kozloduy's Executive Director Yordan Kostadinov told Reuters.
Last year, Sofia bowed to EU's pressure and agreed to shut down the two older reactors before 2003.
But Bulgaria, which is the main power exporter in the Balkans, faces tough talks with the EU next year on the earlier closure of the other two reactors as it seeks to run them to 2008 and 2010. Their operational life is until 2010 and 2012.
"The decommissioning of the two (older) reactors will be carried out not later than end-2002 as agreed with the European Commission," Kostadinov said in written answers to Reuters' questions.
"We have already launched organisational and technical preparations for the closure. We will take into account all safety requirements and the effect of a simultaneous closure of the two reactors in the middle of the winter."
The Soviet-designed 3,760 MW plant has another two 1,000 MW recators and supplies some 44 percent of Bulgaria's power.
Kostadinov said the decommissioning of the two old reactors and their preparation for a safe storage would take five years. The storage and the destruction will take another 35 years.
He said the money needed for full closure and destruction amounted to some 75 percent of the funds needed to build a new reactor but he did not mention any figure.
Some 100 million euros ($90.17 million) were raised by an internationally backed fund set up by the European Commission in 1999, to support the decommissioning process.
Bulgaria opened the energy chapter in its pre-accession talks with the EU in November and hopes to close it in 2003.