Once, units 7 and 8 at the Kozloduy NPP, the second time, the Belene NPP. Is it realistic or is it mandatory? Bogomil Manchev, Chairman of the Management Board of the Bulatom Association, spoke to FACTS.
- Mr. Manchev, have we been dreaming about new nuclear capacities? Politicians are already talking not only about units 7 and 8 at the Kozloduy NPP, but about more and more at the Belene NPP. Is there a real basis for such a thing, or is it just politicians politicking?
- That politicians politicking, that's clear – politicking. But, yes, what we as a country are doing with the 7th and 8th units is extremely important, but we need two more units at the Belene NPP site. It doesn't matter whose technology - whether it's French, American or South Korean, or we'll complete the equipment we kept with a Western company. This could happen, for example, with France. With them, we could make the two reactors 100%.
- These two Russian nuclear reactors that we have, but with equipment and French technology?
- Here I want to explain something clearly. Yes, the equipment was produced in Russia, but it's already Bulgarian, because we paid for it 100%. The car I drive was produced in Germany, but it's mine – I'm bought it. The issue with the Belene NPP is that purely technologically we can do it with France, for example. It is possible. There are specifics, but we can do this project, because many people confuse the Belene site and the Belene project. The Belene project, the state decided not to do, but we were left, as they say, with a bag of iron, which we have to do something with. At the same time, it is of extremely high quality and makes sense to implement it,
because Bulgaria bought the project and owns it 100%.
We cannot sell it to a third party, but we can implement it on our territory. We can implement it with another technology company, I am going back to the French again. We recently discussed things with colleagues and now I hope that when we have a regular government and parliament, our political people will roll up their sleeves, as they say, and make this energy strategy that Bulgaria needs. Look, things are clear. We must have an energy strategy not by 2050, but by 2060. In 2051, we must have decommissioned units 5 and 6 in Kozloduy.
The fifth unit will be decommissioned in 2047, and the sixth in 2051.
Then these two units will each have been in operation for 60 years, and we must build two more units by 2051. If by 2051 we are left with two nuclear units and with the realization of all our ambitions of the sun, which is not bad, about 12-15,000 MB of installed capacity on the territory of Bulgaria, about 7,000 megawatts of wind, we will be deprived of large base capacities that will be able to balance and create that condition for stability of the energy system. You can already see the mischief that is happening in the West.
- We saw what photovoltaics caused in Spain…
- A few days ago there was another breakdown in a part of Spain and many cities were left without electricity. And what happened in North Macedonia and Serbia recently… And which system saved them – the Bulgarian one. Because the rotating mechanisms that we currently have are still somewhat enough to regulate the system. But the increase in the installation of new capacities puts the system under pressure. We need to have basic large capacities with rotating mechanisms in order to be able to balance. We talk a lot about energy storage, we talk about purely active systems - batteries are purely active systems, but they do not create the reactive energy that is necessary to balance the grid.
That is why I say that it is very important to wake up and have four new nuclear power plants operating in our country by 2051 reactor.
I mean and hope that the 7th and 8th units will enter into operation by 2038, as will the 1st and 2nd at the “Belene“ NPP - somewhere between 2047 and 2050. This way, we will easily remove the two units – 5th and 6th at the “Kozloduy“ NPP, but we will have a stable system plus all this realization as a quantity of energy from wind and sun. Then our country will have fulfilled all the conditions to create a low-emission economy, not low-emission energy, but a low-emission economy. In this sense, the dream of politicians is not wrong, because the new heavy industry - once upon a time, heavy industry was metallurgy and chemistry, because they consumed a huge amount of electricity and that is how the energy system developed, and now the new heavy industry is called databases and artificial intelligence.
- For the NPP „Belene“ we went from a goal, and now we are starting to build it again – for the fourth time. Do we in Bulgaria know what we actually want, when it comes to nuclear power?
- What a good question, do we know what we want? I know what I want. You know that I have been a supporter of this project from the very beginning. When the then Prime Minister said that the NPP „Belene“ is a goal, I explained to him that this meant that we had preserved our foundation extremely well - that is, the foundation, so that it would not leak water. And then he finally understood what I was explaining to him. If the water in the goal had disappeared, it meant that we had destroyed the foundation on which a nuclear unit could be built. So „goal“ is a very good definition. Otherwise, the suspension and start of the „Belene“ project after 1989 it is solely and solely for political reasons, unfortunately. I don't know if you remember how much noise was made about the fact that the price of the "Belene" NPP for construction and commissioning was about 4 billion euros for two nuclear units - 1040-1050 megawatts each. And 1.3 billion euros was the so-called owner's price. And they explained to us that it would be a gigantic price that could not be bought off. We heard all sorts of assessments from different experts, unfortunately also our colleagues, who said bad and catastrophic things that were not true. They thought that this would somehow help them to be very important, very famous... It was not right, in general.
If we had built our units according to the original plan, we would have had to pay 8 billion euros.
We stopped the project once and started writing launch dates for 2015 and 2016, when the price became a little over 9 billion euros. There was an economic analysis that was done by the bank HSBS, which had played out several positive options. The bank had said that if the power plant at the then energy price exceeded 10.5 billion euros, we should think about how long it would take to pay for itself. Because people who talk about the cost of energy, as well as the price of energy, obviously do not make a difference. This is the big problem. The cost of the Belene NPP project was 23 euros per megawatt hour – with all the deductions that must be made under our laws to produce about 16.5 million megawatts of electricity. We spend 350 million euros on production. Divide 16.5 million megawatts by 350 million euros and it comes to even less than 23 euros. And we are already moving towards the protected price that I have spoken about many times, of 60 euros.
The difference between 23 and 60 euros is the necessary amount that must be collected so that within 12-15 years we can repay the loan to the banks.
After these 15 years have passed and we return the money to the banks, you understand that then the power plant, as a market participant, will already make huge profits. We had calculated then, with some inflation index as unforeseen expenses, that in 60 years this power plant would produce 100 billion megawatt-hours of electricity. The plant's profit for these 60 years was over 60 billion euros. I can't find another production in Bulgaria that can make that much money. And we're talking about high technology, about the stability of our national security, because you have a working and stable plant. Back then, they were constantly explaining how it was a Russian plant and so on. It can't be something Russian when you paid for it 100%. Yes, you depend on some technological issues, but we proved with the 5th and 6th units at the Kozloduy NPP that Bulgaria has created enough normal and quality engineering staff in 50 years, we have good repair companies to maintain the plant. Regarding spare parts, of course, with a little more effort we will find them. But we can now also get them from the Western world, if we do the project with a Western company, because the partners will have all the spare parts. So, we will have everything ready in terms of supplies. And last but not least, the government must decide what it will decide to do. We already have the option of some of the big giants that deal with databases, like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, if you will, who will be a customer of a large amount of energy from this plant, they could even be investors.
- What option is it at all as a business venture to develop these data centers for databases…
- A huge option. It is not for nothing that I said that this is the new heavy industry, because it requires an extremely large amount of energy.
- Yes, as already understood - they want electricity and water?
- If we want Bulgaria to be known and positioned as an export country, then our currency is energy. So this is a good niche in which we should get involved. But we - as a country, need to have four new operating nuclear units by 2051. We decided that our coal-fired power plants will operate by 2038. No one is exempting us from paying for our carbon emissions if the coal-fired power plants are not operating. And they are not that cheap. There is a plan of the European Community that we have signed that this year - 2025 - the price of carbon dioxide should be fixed at 100 euros. In 2032 it should be 150 euros. If we have not bought quotas for “green emissions”, then we will be punished with the high price per ton of carbon dioxide. By 2025, the penalty will increase from 100 euros to 200 euros, and from 2032, it will increase from 150 euros to 300 euros.
And then go and pay these penalty prices.
You will produce the energy, but it will become insanely expensive and you will wonder what to do with it. The same thing happens with the many solar parks that have been built. And we are explained that we have not had very good connectivity with neighboring countries. Our connectivity with neighboring countries is not bad. Many wind farms have been built on the transmission networks and in neighboring countries. And so suddenly, at a time when there is a lot of sun, a huge amount of electricity is produced, but the dispatcher turns it off because there is nothing to do with this energy. Investors in these large solar parks suffer quite serious financial losses. We simply need it and I am trying to pay attention, because I very often hear in the public space the thesis that the 7th and 8th units at the “Kozloduy“ NPP are more necessary for us than the 1st and 2nd at the “Belene“ NPP. We need all four units. Look, we brought ourselves to this situation - no one is to blame.
For many years we played the game of “start, stop, start, stop, start, stop“, but we don't know what we are starting.
And this was so because the political line of the state, unfortunately, is formed in the parliament and the government. It's simple. For a nuclear power plant, we need at least three full mandates - between 12 and 15 years, to be sure that it will be built. This means several governments with full mandates to consistently work on the project to make it happen. And not after each government - whether it's for 8 months, 10 months, or 4 years, the next one to say that they have discovered hot water. It - the hot water - has been discovered. We are using it. For the moment, I see that there is a very large consensus about building the 7th and 8th units in Kozloduy and thinking about the Belene NPP. This makes me happy, and the individual ministries will be committed to building the new units. I also hope that the state will start conducting a feasibility study for the use of the Belene site. Look, one of the greatest values that a state can have in the European community is to have a licensed nuclear site. And we have it. Any nuclear project can be implemented on it. I repeat - we have this nuclear site. The question is whether we use it.
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Bogomil Manchev was born on December 31, 1957 in Sofia. He graduated from the Higher Institute of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering with a degree in “Thermal Nuclear Power“. He worked at the “Kozloduy“ NPP from operator to duty engineer of a unit. He supervised the commissioning of the 5th and 6th units of the plant. He works in the research nuclear reactor at the Institute for Nuclear Research and Nuclear Energy at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. He participates in the modernization of the “Kozloduy” NPP and in the project for the construction of the “Belene” NPP. He is Chairman of the Board of Directors of the “Bulatom” association.