2024-02-12 21:47:40
The project is state-owned, with 30% self-participation in their financing and 70% loans with state guarantees
The agreement on cooperation in the construction of nuclear power between Bulgaria and the USA was signed today
The end of March is the deadline in which “Westinghouse” must submit an engineering report for Unit VII of the Kozloduy NPP, and it will contain an indicative price. This was answered by the Minister of Energy Rumen Radev to a question of “24 Chasa”.
This came after he and Andrew Light, assistant secretary at the US Department of Energy, signed today an intergovernmental agreement for cooperation on a project to build nuclear power at the Kozloduy NPP site and a civilian nuclear program in Bulgaria. Radev assessed this agreement not only as a strategic one, which opens access to US nuclear technology, but also as a long-term one, which can open up a partnership for the next 100 years. The cooperation is not only in the specific project for the construction of the two units in “Kozloduy”, but also in the field of small nuclear reactors, personnel training, access to technologies for storing spent nuclear fuel, participation in the development of innovative nuclear technologies.
For the signing of this important and long-awaited document in the Granite Hall of the Council of Ministers came the elite of the state and nuclear energy and deputies from the energy commission in the parliament.
After journalistic questions, Radev clarified that the price of electricity from the new units will be below the market price in Europe at the moment and stated that it will be around 65 euros per megawatt hour. The construction of the two blocks will cost around 14 billion, the minister said, but did not specify the currency. His team later said the amount was in dollars.
These days there are numbers floating around in the public space for the construction of the new capacities of 17 billion dollars for one unit, which makes 34 billion dollars for both. The minister said that the sums launched were fantastic and added that this talk was frivolous and incorrect. But they took it as an expression of well-intentioned people who had fears after 30 years of nothing being built in our energy sector.
Radev also stated that the construction of the VII and VIII blocks of the Kozloduy NPP is a state project. Its financial structuring will be 25-30% self-participation and 70% loan funds, some of which are guaranteed by the state.
The signing of the agreement today also opens up possibilities for financing the project with export crediting. Radev said that during his visit to the USA last week, the possibilities for bridge financing of the project, as well as crediting through the issued state guarantees, were also discussed.