12 Dec (NucNet): Bulgaria has approved a report from its energy minister on the need for new nuclear and has announced it will begin exclusive talks with Westinghouse on building an AP1000 Generation III+ reactor at the Kozloduy nuclear site.
Energy minister Dragomir Stoynev, quoted by the government’s official press service, said the approval will allow him to grant national energy company Bulgarian Energy Holding (BEH) permission to negotiate with Toshiba Corporation and its subsidiary Westinghouse Electric on the construction of a new unit at Kozloduy.
The negotiations will be aimed at an agreement for a strategic investor and Toshiba could take up to a 30 percent stake in the project, a statement said.
The statement did not give details on the remaining 70 percent share in the project, but said the agreement requires Toshiba and Westinghouse to “help secure external financing” from the Export-Import Bank of the US and the Japanese Bank for International Cooperation.
Mr Stoynev said there will be no financial support from the government.
He said there will be no tender process for the design of the reactor. “If there is a tender process for the design, this would mean the government will have to buy the electricity that is produced. This new unit will operate on a market basis,” Mr Stoynev said.
Westinghouse confirmed in a separate statement that it would enter into exclusive talks with BEH to “advance the opportunity” to develop and construct an AP1000 nuclear power plant for Kozloduy-7.
The government has set 30 September 2014 as a deadline to conclude the negotiations with Toshiba and Westinghouse.
At the end of November, Mr Stoynev said talks with Westinghouse on the construction of an AP1000 unit at Kozloduy were ongoing and construction could start in 2016 if the negotiations were successful.
Mr Stoynev said that if negotiations with Westinghouse fail, Bulgaria would seek other options to replace the only commercially operational units in the country, Kozloduy-5 and Kozloduy-6.
The operational licence for Kozloduy-5 expires in 2017 and the licence for Kozloduy-6 in 2019.
The decision to build a new unit at Kozloduy was taken by the previous Bulgarian government in April 2012.
There are eight AP1000 reactors under construction worldwide – four in China and four in the US.
Westinghouse is taking part in the tender process for the construction of two new units at the Czech Republic’s Temelín nuclear plant.
