The Republic of Moldova, as part of the Vertical Gas Corridor between Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Ukraine, is involved in projects that will ensure new capacities at the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant and the transit of natural gas quantities from southern to northern Europe, IPN reports, with reference to Radio Bulgaria in Romanian.
In particular, the press service of the Council of Ministers in Sofia announced the constitution of interdepartmental working groups for faster implementation of projects aimed at building new capacities at the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant and the construction of the Vertical Gas Corridor.
The quoted source said the use of new capacities at the Kozloduy nuclear power plant is a strategic project for Bulgaria. Last autumn, Nikolai Denkov’s Cabinet announced particular procedures for the construction of the 7th and 8th reactors at the Kozloduy NPP. Their construction is scheduled to be completed in 2033 and 2036, respectively.
IPN notes that for the first time Moldova was mentioned in the context of nuclear energy back in the last century. The Soviet Union planned to build a nuclear facility with six reactors with a capacity of 1,000 MW each in the Transnistrian region. This would have been the largest power plant in Moldova and one of the largest plants in Europe.
After obtaining independence, the discussions on the possibility of connecting Moldova to nuclear energy continued. Moreover, Romania proposed that the Moldovan authorities should take part in building new capacities at the Cernavoda Nuclear Power Plant. In 1994, Agrarian Prime Minister Andrei Sangeli rejected the offer. Subsequently, Bucharest made another offer, which was rejected in 2002 by the Communist authorities. The Communist government tried to initiate a project to build a nuclear reactor with French assistance, but this was nipped in the bud by the costs of about one billion euros.
More recently, Minister of Energy Victor Parlicov said that Moldova could participate as a co-investor in expanding the capacities of the Cernavoda Nuclear Power Plant “so as to ensure safe, sustainable energy at competitive prices in the future”, but things have stood still.
