2024-08-01 19:21:56
Energy Minister Vladimir Malinov asked the deputies to extend the negotiations with Ukraine for the equipment and reactors for the Belene NPP, which it wants to buy, by 180 days. He recalled that he proposed it to the National Assembly with a report dated June 28.
The minister joined the debate in the parliament’s energy committee after the people’s representatives rejected two proposals for the equipment. To BSP – to stop the negotiations and actions on the sale of the equipment, and to ITN – to remove the steam generators from the equipment in order to provide them to the Kozloduy NPP, due to the frequent problems with the steam generator of Unit VI.
The pragmatic approach is that in this period the analysis of the compatibility and applicability of one of the steam generators can continue, suggested the acting energy minister.
Based on the proposal made, the chairman of the commission, Delyan Dobrev from GERB-SDS, undertook to prepare a new proposal for voting tomorrow.
Vladimir Malinov assured the deputies that from the Ukrainian side they confirm the interest in the purchase of the equipment with or without one steam generator.
According to the information of Tsanko Bachiiski, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NRA), incidents with a specific section of the third steam generator of Unit VI will become more frequent after 2021. According to him, there is clearly an “unlocked factor and we need to find out what it is”. Bachiyski introduced the deputies to the technical features of the events in the block and stated that at this stage the situation is far from a preventive and maximum permissible clogging of up to 5% of the tubes of the steam generator, which are a total of 550. At the moment, 18 are plugged, of which 6 have been closed for the past three years.
Tsanko Bachiiski, however, did not take the risk of confirming that the facility could last until the end of the reactor’s operating cycle, because at this stage no suitable method for tracking and predicting the development of defects could be developed. It is in the direction of discovering a method that efforts should be directed at the moment, is the opinion of the chairman of the NRA.
Ivan Andreev, executive director of Kozloduy NPP, informed the deputies about the deadlines for replacing a steam generator. According to his reference, the time required for its replacement at a Russian reactor is 4 months. What they know at this stage from the Kozloduy NPP about the compatibility of the steam generator from the equipment for the Belene NPP with that of the operating nuclear plant is the presence of “small structural differences that should be subject to analysis.” He added that a procedure had been opened to select a consultant to study the matter.
Ivan Andreev presented to the members of the commission the technical measures taken to ensure security until the scheduled repair in October-November this year.
“Based on the preliminary analyzes that we have at the moment, several technical measures have been taken for its safe operation until the annual repair of Unit VI. Some of them include the operation at power below 100 percent, after analysis we raised the level in the steam generator by 5 cm. We plan during the planned annual repair, we will replace the main circulation pump of this steam generator and restore the one that was in operation before 2021. We are also continuing with the additional analyzes that affect the mode of operation of the steam generator,” informed Ivan Andreev. “Please note that this steam generator is actually operational. It has been experiencing operational events on a 4 month cycle and we are trying to determine the cause of the events.”
With the mentioned pump replacement, the aim is to rule out one of the possible factors for the increased cases in the last three years.
The executive director of the Kozloduy NPP added that there is a similar problem in Slovakia and on the Bulgarian side they are in contact with their Slovak colleagues so that they can share their experience during the scheduled annual maintenance. Separately from the Kozloduy NPP, they have already turned to the Spanish company “Technaton”, with whose help the diagnostics and control in the power plant was created.
“They helped us in discovering these defects, which were in the shutdown now. We are going with them for a procedure so that they can be present at the site and help us determine which tubes are risky,” Andreev reported.