France's Areva Eyes Nuclear, Renewable Projects in Bulgaria

France's Areva, a subcontractor in Bulgaria's Belene nuclear power plant project, said it is willing to take part in new nuclear and renewable energy projects in the southeast European country.

Areva is interested in reprocessing and recycling of spent nuclear fulel from Bulgaria's sole Kozloduy nuclear power plant, Anne Lauvergeon told SeeNews after signing a memorandum of understanding for cooperation in several energy areas with state-owned Bulgarian Energy Holding group.

"We are going to work in renewables, in three different issues – offshore winds, biomass and solar," she added but declined to elaborate. "We have had a lot of talks already and this memorandum organizes the working groups."

In 2008, Bulgaria's government hired Russia's Atomstroyexport to build jointly with Areva and Siemens a 2,000-megawatt nuclear power plant in Belene, on the Danube river. Sofia and Moscow agreed last week to extend the initial agreement on Belene construction concluded in 2006 by three months until the end of June when they have to reach a final agreement on all the conditions of the engineering, procurement and contruction (EPC) contract.

Areva has also participated in the upgrade of the two Soviet-made reactors of 1,000 MW each in Kozloduy that were put on stream in 1987 and 1991, respectively. Their operatonal licences will expire in 2017 and 2019. Kozloduy closed down its four older Soviet-made reactors of 440 MW each prior to its accession to the EU in 2007 to address nuclear safety concerns of the bloc.

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