Westinghouse Vice Pres Says Banks Ready With Investment Plan for Bulgarian NPP New Unit

Foreign banks have drafted an investment plan for a new unit at Bulgaria’s sole nuclear power plant (NPP) Kozloduy, the vice president of U.S.–based Westinghouse Electric Company, Randy Galm, told a Sofia-based TV station on Tuesday.

Talks are underway on the price of the project for the addition of a 1,000 megawatt (MW) unit to Kozloduy NPP and the financial model that will be used, Galm told Bulgaria On Air TV station.

The Kozloduy NPP remained with two operational reactors of 1,000 MW each after the country closed down four units of 440 MW each to address nuclear safety concerns of the European Union prior to its accession to the bloc. Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007. In April 2012 the government decided to add another 1,000 MW unit to the plant.

In December experts of the state-owned Bulgarian Energy Holding, Westinghouse Electric Company and Japanese multinational engineering company Toshiba Corporation signed an agreement to open talks on the construction of a new unit at Kozloduy NPP using the Westinghouse AP1000 technology.

The three companies can be ready with the project's technical and financial parameters in nine months, the Bulgarian government said back then, adding that construction works are expected to start in 2016.

The project will get no funding from the state budget, prime minister Plamen Oresharski said in December, as quoted by the government's press service.

Westinghouse Electric Company is a group company of Toshiba Corporation.

Source: SeeNews