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From Bulgaria

14.11.2011 15:41

Positive Result of Stress Test on Bulgaria’s Kozloduy Nuclear Plant

The country's planned second nuclear power plant at Belene also underwent stress tests successfully even though it did not fall within the obligatory sites for testing

AUTHOR: Lyudmila Zlateva

© Kozloduy NPP

Bulgaria’s sole nuclear power plant Kozloduy is resistible to external atmospheric and man-made negative influences. This way were summoned the results of the stress tests which the NPP underwent from August to October this year. The results were announced on Saturday during a round table entitled Condition and outlook of the Bulgarian nuclear energy organized by the Bulgarian Atomic Forum (Bulatom) and the Atlantic Club of Bulgaria. The security tests of nuclear units across Europe were initiated after the nuclear crisis in Japans Fukishima power plant in March this year.

The stress tests encompassed Kozloduy’s units 3 and 4 which are being decommissioned and its operating units 5 and 6, 1000-megawatts each. They showed that the nuclear power plant has 55-80% more seismic resistance than the required.

The stress test also simulated scenarios of extreme drought, heat, temperature drops, icing and floods. The results read that even if the level of the Danube rises and Iron Gate dams 1 and 2 break, Bulgaria’s nuclear plant would not be flooded. According to Plamen Vasilev, director of security at Kozloduy, even climate change due to global warming would not affect the facility.

He added that the electricity supply to and from the power plant is secured by three power lines and by 12 diesel generators. The several independent cooling systems of the nuclear plant should be enough to prevent repeating events similar to those in Japan, Vasilev added.

“We did not carry out the stress tests just to boast with the good results in which we had no doubt”, he pointed out, stating that the power plant has a well prepared staff and emergency plans prepared with the cooperation of French and Finnish experts.

A representative of the Bulgarian National Electricity Company (NEK) told journalists that the planned second nuclear power plant at Belene, built by Russia's Atomstroyexport, also underwent stress tests successfully even though it did not fall within the obligatory sites for testing.

Yordan Georgiev of NEK said that even stricter flooding criteria have been applied to the Belene site, taking in consideration Iron Gate dams 1 and 2, as well as the two Bulgarian – Romanian hydroelectric complexes Silistra-Calarasi and Nikopol-Turnu Magurele planned in the near future.

All EU member states are to submit the results of their nuclear stress tests by December 31, 2011, to the European Commission for further assessment.