Nuclearelectrica "testing the plant in Cernavodă"

The Nuclearelectrica company will spend 50 million euros in equity to achieve the so-called "stress tests" at the nuclear plant in Cernavodă.

Following the incident in Japan, where the Fukushima plant was severely damaged after a tsunami, the European Commission requested tests for all of the almost 150 nuclear units in the member states.

The state company Nuclearelectrica announces that the testing will be finalized in Romania next year.

Nuclearelectrica Director Pompilius Budulan, stated that the company has the necessary funds to improve nuclear safety for the Cernavodă plant, in order to pass the stress tests.

These consist of analyzing each chain reactor on the optimisation platform, and among others the targets are charging sets, which supply electricity to the pumps providing colling water in case of disaster.

While not binding, the necessity of the tests has been established for all nuclear units in the world at the last meeting of the members of the International Agency for Atomic Energy in Vienna, following the disaster in Fukushima.

Pompilius Budulan also stated that Romania comes first at this moment in terms of the capacity to operate a nuclear plant and atomic energy is not to be abandoned, given that 80 percent of our power plants have exceeded their life expectancy and a third of the hydropower plants should also be modernized.

Consequently, there are high hopes in regards to building reactors 3 and 4 in Cernavodă.

"Romania is expecting a delegation from China next week, which showed their interest to participate in the achievement of units", also added Pompilius Budulan.

The project is currently estimated to four billion euros and the Romanian state wants to reduce their participation share in the project from approximately 70 percent to 40.

To achieve this, Nuclearelectrica will first negotiate with the other two participants in the project, Arcelor Mittal and Enel, who own 15 percent from the project, for a possible increase in the participation share, while the rest would remain available to other interested investors.

Also, as was pointed out today, the construction of the second nuclear plant is still standing, although the start date is yet uncertain.

All that is known is that it will be located in Transylvania, according to the declarations made by the Nuclearelectrica director.

Translated by: Manuela Stancu
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University