Building a new nuclear plant will be less cost-effective than adding a new reactor to the already-existing facility at Kozloduy in Bulgaria, Kozloduy chief executive Dimitar Angelov said Friday.
Angelov told state BTA news agency that a preliminary study had shown that building a new reactor at Kozloduy was "expedient from an economic point of view."
Only two 1,000-megawatt units remain in operation at the plant after European Union safety requirements prompted Bulgaria to shut its four other 440-megawatt units before joining the EU in 2007.
In order to compensate for the lost power, the Bulgarian government has long planned to build a new 2,000-megawatt plant in Belene, further down the Danube.
But lack of funding and the withdrawal of German partner RWE from the project last year, has forced the government to put the project on hold and consider adding a new reactor to Kozloduy instead.
A study conducted by the plant and Spanish Iberdrola showed that the infrastructure at Kozloduy was a major advantage, Angelov said Friday.
But the Kozloduy chief added that the decision would have to be taken "at a political level" after more elaborate analyses.
The government has already contracted Russian company Atomstroyexport to build the plant at Belene and Prime Minister Boyko Borisov said this week that Sofia was ready to continue with the project after restructuring it in order to secure funding.
"The project could not continue in the way it was structured so far. We will seek to restructure it and make it transparent in order to allow us to go ahead with it," Borisov said.
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