Bulgaria’s Energy Minister Temenuzhka Petkova said Thursday that the state's new central-right government had extended an offer to Toshiba Corporation's Westinghouse Electric Company to purchase 49 percent of the seventh reactor for the Kozlodui nuclear power plant.
The deals already signed call for Westinghouse to own 30 percent of the new AP-1000 reactor build, but to give up that share once construction is completed. At a conference in Sofia on Thursday, Petkova said the new offer is for Westinghouse to finance 49 percent of the construction costs and to maintain a 49 percent stake after the reactor goes on line.
Mike Kirst, Vice President, Strategy and External Relations for Europe, Middle East and Africa at Westinghouse said recently that the Kozlodui 7 project was contingent on economic projections needed to determine the future price of electricity from various sources to ensure the new reactor would be competitive.
Kirst said both parties, Bulgaria and Westinghouse, needed to determine if Kozlodui 7 was “bankable.”
Bulgaria is decommissioning Kozlodui 1-4 as part of its agreement to join the European Union. Units 5 and 6 are likely to be upgraded under a plan that was submitted to the Bulgarian Nuclear Regulatory Agency in November 2014, but is currently under review by engineering consultancy WorleyParsons.
The firm's report on the upgrade plan is expected in mid-April.
Meanwhile, Bulgaria has yet to determine how to finance its 51 percent of Kozlodui 7 and was not intending to make its plans public until after Westinghouse had determined whether or not to increase its share of the project, Petkova said.
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