site.btaDecember 31, 2002: Unit 1 of Kozloduy N-plant Is Decommissioned

On December 31, 2002, Unit 1 of the Kozloduy N-plant was taken off stream, honouring commitments linked to Bulgaria's EU accession. Unit 2 was switched off a day earlier.

These were the N-plant's oldest reactors.

Here is how BTA's English-language service covered the story:

Unit 1 of Kozloduy N-Plant Switched Off Bulgaria's Power Grid

Sofia, December 31 (BTA) - The procedure of switching off Unit 1 of the Kozloduy nuclear power plant from Bulgaria's power grid began at 19:34 hrs on Tuesday. Unit 2 was switched off a day earlier.

The procedure took about 1 hour and 55 minutes. It was performed at a speed of 2 MW/minute. The whole process - from the command given by the dispatcher on duty to the final switching off was monitored by the Central Dispatching Department, Minister of Energy and Energy Resources Milko Kovachev, his deputy Angel Minev and a lot of journalists. The unit's closure was timed in such a way as to be performed during the period of lowest electricity consumption.

The two oldest units of the N-plant are decommissioned in compliance with a decision of the Council of Ministers adopted on December 19 to honour Bulgaria's commitments assumed at the accession negotiations with the European Union.

Each one of the so-called small reactors of the N-plant has two generators, Minev said. The first generator of Unit 2, G3, stopped its electricity production at about 01.25 hrs. An hour later G4 also stopped its production.

"From December 22 up to now units 1 and 2 used only 50 per cent of their capacity," said Mityu Hristozov, chief engineer of the National Electric Company.

"We should give credit to the N-plant and its operators for what they have done for this country during all those years of its operation," Kovachev said upon the start of the decommissioning procedure on Unit 2. He added that the decommissioning of the two units could not be expected to have any negative consequences for this country, nor would it lead to a rise in the prices of electricity.

"We are turning a new page - the process of decommissioning the N-plant's units, which is new for the operators of the nuclear plant," Kovachev said. Three-hundred million leva are available from two special funds for this purpose, plus 100 million in grant aid from the EU.

The other two 440-MW units of Kozloduy will have to be decommissioned in 2006, and new ways of compensating their capacity and ensuring the country's electricity balance will be sought by that time. The new N-plant at Belene will not be ready in 2006, but Bulgaria can rely on the Maritsa Iztok thermoelectrical power plant which has been modernized, as well as on other thermal and hydroelectric power plants and on power plants using gas, Kovachev said.