Bulgaria Prepares to Stress Test Kozloduy Nuclear Plant

Bulgaria's first and for now only NPP Kozloduy located on the Danube river. Photo by BGNES

Bulgaria is beginning preparations for a stress test of its Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant, NPP, the cabinet's press center announced Tuesday.

The test has been ordered by Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, after a meeting with the CEO of the National Electric Company, NEK, Krasimir Parvanov, the CEO of Kozloduy, Kostadin Dimitrov, the Deputy CEO of Kozloduy, Aleksandar Nikolov, and the Security and Safety Head of the NPP, Mitko Yanov.

The check includes seven key components – location of the NPP, flood risk, cooling systems - construction, spare power facilities, longevity, type of reactors, and terrorist threat.

The International Atomic Agency will be notified about the test and its experts will be invited as monitors.

Upon conclusion of the check, Bulgaria will publicly announce the results and will propose the type of testing applied at Kozloduy to be included in the common European requirements for NPP tests.

In case they are additional safety testing requirements by the European Commission, Bulgaria is ready to apply them as well.

In the beginning of last week, energy ministers from the European Union reached an agreement to stress test all EU NPPs. The decision came on the heels of the 9 point magnitude on the Richter scale earthquake and following 10-meter tsunami which damaged the Japanese Fukushima NPP.

After the Monday meeting of the EU Energy Council, Bulgaria's Economy and Energy Minister, Traicho Traikov, announced the criteria for testing the NPPs in Europe will be ready by the end of the year while the testing itself is not to start until 2012.

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