Construction of the second block of the Krško nuclear power plant under consideration

The owner of the Slovenian part of the Krško nuclear power plant, the company Gen energija, expects that the government will express its opinion on the plans for the construction of the second block of the nuclear power plant by the end of this year, said Martin Novšak, the director of Gen energija, for the business supplement of the Ljubljana daily “Dnevnik” on Friday.

Novšak added that by the end of the year, the results of the commissioned study on whether there are prerequisites for the construction of a second nuclear block with a capacity of 1200 to 1500 megawatts, which, according to Gen energija’s estimates, requires an investment of 2 to 2.5 billion euros, should be known. The study, according to Novšak, is being conducted by the French geological institute BRGM and the French institute for radiological and nuclear safety IRSN, as well as the Slovenian Geological Survey and the Institute for Construction.

The construction of the second block of the nuclear power plant has been included by the government of Janez Janša in the resolution on strategic development plans until 2023, anticipating that the new block of the nuclear power plant would be built due to the increasing deficit of domestic energy due to rising consumption and through public-private partnership funding. The lifespan of the current nuclear power plant, which is co-owned by Slovenia and Croatia, expires in 2023 with the possibility of extension until 2043.

According to the government resolution, the possibility of starting the construction of the second block of the nuclear power plant is foreseen for 2013, with its completion four years later. The possibility of foreign investor participation still needs to be defined, and during a recent meeting of inter-ministerial groups from Slovenia and Italy in Rome, led by Foreign Ministers Franco Frattini and Dimitrij Rupel, Italy expressed interest in co-investing, in which the Italian company Enel would participate. Novšak told the business supplement of “Dnevnik” that Gen energija would be capable of carrying out the investment in the second block of the Krško nuclear power plant on its own, without additional investors. (H)