Nuclearelectrica’s Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders approved the initiation of phase I regarding the retrofitting strategy for the Cernavoda NPP Unit 1. The project was brought out at the request of the main shareholder, the Ministry of Energy (82.49%).

In a press release, the company shows that the first phase of refurbishment will include “all the activities necessary to ensure the performance of Unit 1 for a period of 30 years, ie expanding the number of operating hours at rated output further to the 210,000 hours initially estimated in the project “. As a result, effective shutdown of Unit 1 for refurbishment was scheduled from December 2026-December 2028.

“Extending the operation beyond the initially estimated duration through the project certifies, first and foremost, the quality of the operation so far and provides scope for obtaining obvious advantages for the project, company, and the contribution of stable sources, not subject to climatic factors in the energy system,” said Cosmin Ghiţă, general manager at SN Nuclearelectrica.

Phase 1 will also include the organization of the project, at the beginning of 2018 organizational and logistic movements  resulted from the study contracted by SNN will start, but also the process of finalizing the support documentation necessary for the preparation of the feasibility study, which will be submitted for approval in 2021.

The company states that “most of the studies, technical and nuclear safety analysis must be carried out as well by specialized nuclear engineering firms, usually only on certain segments, competences which exceed the expertise of companies that usually prepare feasibility studies for investment projects “. This approach explains why the project will be carried out in two stages.

In addition, several “significant information about some of the equipment / structures, systems or components in question can be obtained only during outages of Unit 1″, and the feasibility study should consider #all the available input data in order to develop a comprehensive and sufficiently substantiated document”.

“Approval by shareholders of the first phase of the refurbishment of Unit 1 effectively means ensuring continuity of the SNN project without delay, abiding by the schedule for each step and sub-phases,” quoted Cosmin Ghiţă in the press release.”Rehabilitation of Unit 1 is currently a priority project for SNN, is entirely run by the company and it is simultaneously the largest investment project among Romanian energy companies, one that provides another 30 years of operation and production, at more than half the cost of a new CANDU unit nuclear “.