New reactor helps cut Romanian power imports

Thursday, 14 August 2008

Romania managed to cut its electricity imports by nearly 30% in the first half of 2008 relative to 2007, thanks to a massive increase in nuclear output after its second nuclear unit started up.

 

The Cernavoda plant (Image: AECL)

The country's second nuclear reactor, Cernavoda 2, entered commercial service in October 2007. Now, half-yearly figures published by the Romanian National Institute of Statistics show that, in a 6-month period when overall electricity production was up on the same period the previous year, imports, at 395.5 million kWh, were 169.3 million kWh down. Nuclear generation for the six months, at 5119.2 million kWh, was over 66% up on the same period in 2007, with hydro also 28% up.

 

The country remained heavily dependent on fossil fuels for electricity generation, which accounted for over 54.3% of its electricity in the period, but nevertheless managed to cut its fossil fuel generation by about 1%.

 

Romania's next two nuclear units, also at Cernavoda, will be built by a consortium of six European companies in a joint venture with Romania's Nuclearelectrica SA under plans finalized earlier this year. The Romanian government has now announced that Nuclearlectrica will take a 51% stake in the project, rather than its originally planned 20% share. In return, the company is expected to provide a total €2.04 billion ($3 billion) contribution including assets and funds  towards the €4 billion ($6 billion) project.

 

Cernavoda 3 and 4, both 750 MW CANDUs, will be a similar design to the 700 MWe unit 2. The new units are slated to start up in 2014 and 2015, respectively.