Bulgaria’s plans to slash its electricity exports next year due to the EU-required closure of two nuclear units, which could threaten energy stability in the Balkans, The Associated Press reported last week citing officials.
“The electricity that Bulgaria will be able to produce will be directed mainly to the domestic market… and in certain periods there will be nothing left for exports,” said Lyubimir Velkov, the chief executive officer of the state-run electricity provider NEK.
Bulgaria is the biggest electricity exporter in the Balkans, providing its neighbors and other Balkan countries with more than 7 million megawatt-hours of electricity per year.
Bulgaria, however, will mothball two aging reactors in its Kozlodui nuclear plant on Dec. 31, as part of its entry agreements with the European Union, which it is to join on Jan 1.
Economy and Energy Minister Rumen Ovcharov confirmed the warning, and blamed the issue of the European Union’s insistence to see the two units closed by the end of the year.
Ovcharov said Bulgaria has been covering between 50% and 100% of the electricity deficit in the Balkan countries that need to import electricity, warning that “now panic has begun to rise.”
According to Ovcharov, electricity exports already have been cut by a third because of “problems with coal deliveries from Ukraine and Russia.”
Velkov said they were due to “a Ukrainian decision to stop coal exports and to block Russian coal exports through its territory,” but did not elaborate.