Bulgaria to have new reactor at Kozloduy NPP in 2033 - govt

To facilitate the construction of Unit 7, Bulgaria will inject 500 million levs ($270.8 million/255.6 million euro) to increase the capital of the project company, Kozloduy NPP -Newbuild, the government said in a press release. Preparations for the construction of Unit 8 have also been given the green light.

The cabinet mandated energy minister Rumen Radev to move forth with appointing a contractor for the technical design, construction and commissioning of the new Unit 7 and to sign a contract with the preferred bidder and the provider of the selected AP1000 technology stating a fixed price and setting a timeline for completion.

Additionally, the government required the energy minister to start talks with financial institutions on securing the necessary loans to fund the project.

"The combined capacity of the future Units 7 and 8 is 2300 MW, or significantly higher than the capacity of the decommissioned Units 1, 2, 3 and 4 at the Kozloduy nuclear power plant, which had a total capacity of 1760 MW," prime minister Nikolay Denkov said.

Kozloduy NPP currently operates two Russian-designed VVER-1000 reactors of 1000 MW each, Unit 5 and Unit 6. Their operational licences will expire in 2027 and 2029, respectively.

KNPP - Newbuild, the project company owned by Kozloduy NPP, in June signed a front-end engineering design (FEED) contract with US Westinghouse Electric Company to begin assessment on the construction of a new reactor at Kozloduy deploying Westinghouse's proprietary AP1000 technology.

Last week, Westinghouse Electric signed agreements on supplier localisation with five Bulgarian companies, which will be involved in the reactor construction project.

(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)