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Reactors 3 and 4 at Cernavoda will cost 5 billion euro (document)
The construction of reactors 3 and 4 at Cernavoda is estimated at 5 billion euro and authorities are analysing what state aid they could grant investors, such as the possibility to sell energy outside the stock market, a document called “Reviewed strategy to continue Cernavoda units 3 and 5 project”, posted on Nuclearelectrica website.
Since 2009 producers have to sell the whole energy obtained on the stock market, in a transparent and undiscriminating way, after previous scandals about cheap energy reaching “smart guys”.
“Measures like: (i) the possibility of project company to contract electric energy obtained before the producer licence, both on OPCOM platform and outside it and (ii) the development of a CfD mechanism, a model used to reform electricity market in Great Britain, which has in view supporting investments in the energy field in production units with low carbon emissions,” the document shows.
The strategy concerning this project also speaks about the “possibility of using state guarantee as an instrument needed to secure financing large investments of energy infrastructure, which bring added value at economic and social levels, on condition of observing domestic and European law about state aid, including it in the level of guarantees agreed with international financial bodies.”
Carrying out the project supposes ensuring investment funds estimated at about 5 billion euro, without the shares already owned by Nuclearelectrica and the Romanian state.
“To ensure these funds, the project will be implemented by attracting the private capital of a majority private investor as well as technological capacity, able to assume potential risks in the execution stage to benefit from competitive and safe energy on a long term (at least 50 years) in the exploitation stage”.
The feasibility study made by Ernst & Young in 2012 showed that investments in the two reactors would be 6.45 billion euro, but the amount had to be reviewed after a new study.
The authors of the reviewed strategy mention that reactors 3 and 4 are necessary to replace units taken out of use in the following years.
The increase of energy capacity at Cernavoda nuclear plant with two nuclear units was identified as being the best solution to cover capacity deficit after 2020, both from technical-economic point of view and from the perspective of using existing domestic resources and national infrastructure, developed on CANDU type technology.
Moreover, the nuclear project at Cernavoda is part of the category of investments in low carbon emission technology, necessary for Romania, in the context of ambitious decarbonization projects at European level, of reducing by 40% greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
In November 2015, representatives of Nuclearelectrica and China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN) signed a Memorandum on the development, construction, operation and decommissioning of units 3 and 4 at Cernavoda nuclear plant.