Bulgaria should upgrade its two operating nuclear reactors and build four more, the head of country's only nuclear power plant said here on Wednesday.
"The nuclear energy has no alternative, and therefore Bulgaria faces three major tasks in this field," Ivan Genov, executive director of Kozloduy NPP said at the opening of the international conference "Bulgarian Nuclear Energy - National, Regional and World Energy Security."
First, the modernization of the two operating reactors at the Kozloduy NPP should be completed by 2017, giving the country an extra 30 years of cheap energy, Genov said.
Without modernization, the Soviet-made 1,000 MW units that produce one-third of the national electricity must be closed in 2020.
According to Genov, a list of concrete measures that will allow extension of the life span of the two units has already been made.
Bulgaria must also start building seventh, and in the more distant future -- eighth reactor in Kozloduy NPP, he said.
Furthermore, the country has to restart the Belene project, Genov said.
Kozloduy has six reactors in total but the other four 440-MW units were shut down in 2002 and 2006 as one of the conditions for Bulgaria's accession to the European Union.
In 2005, the Balkan country approved the project for construction of the 2,000-megawatt Belene NPP, and the Russian company Atomstroyexport won the bid to build this NPP in 2006. However, the project was frozen after GERB party came to power in July 2009, and suspended in 2012.
To fill the gap, the new government decided last December to conduct negotiations with Toshiba Corporation for the construction of a Kozloduy located 1,000 MW pressurized water reactor designed by Westinghouse Electric Company.
http://www.neurope.eu/article/bulgaria-should-upgrade-nuclear-reactors-build-more-expert