Bulgaria offered Slovenia to join the project for the new reactors at the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant as an energy buyer or as an investor, an offer that was already made to Greece earlier this year.
Slovenia is preparing to increase its nuclear power capacity and is ready to learn from Bulgaria, which appears to be ahead of it in its plans to expand the Kozloduy NPP with two new American reactors.
“We are tying the project to a long-term energy demand forecast that covers the period at least until 2050. It shows that the two new reactors, combined with extending the lives of the existing ones, will be enough to provide baseload power until we decide how we will develop our energy after the middle of the century”, explained Bulgarian Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov.
Denkov offered participation in the project to his Slovenian colleague Robert Golob at a bilateral meeting within the framework of the 18th Strategic Forum in the Slovenian city of Bled, the government in Sofia announced on Tuesday.
Bulgaria is ready to help Slovenia also for the training of specialists in nuclear energy.
In July of this year, Greece confirmed its interest in investing in the construction of new reactors at the Kozloduy NPP, with the alternative option being to conclude a 20-year contract for the purchase of the produced electricity.
Bulgaria currently appears to be making progress on its Kozloduy NPP expansion project. The country chose the American company Westinghouse as the executor of the feasibility study for the construction of the VII reactor at the Kozloduy NPP using the American AP-1000 technology.
The American company seems to be the absolute favourite to build the new nuclear power plant, after trying to enter the Bulgarian market since 2014.
The new Bulgarian government is very active in the negotiations in the field of nuclear electricity in the context of reducing its energy dependence on Russia.
In early July, it became clear that Ukraine was in serious talks to buy two Russian-made nuclear reactors from Bulgaria in a deal that could help Kyiv deal with power shortages and help Bulgaria sell junk equipment it spends every year millions for conservation.
Part of the talks on the possible deal took place in Sofia during the first visit of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Bulgaria in July.
