‘Divorce’ of Kozloduy NPP with Rosatom - mission (im)possible?

Can a Russian nuclear reactor operate with nuclear fuel produced by another country and by another technology and in what timeframe? The Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NRA) urgently needs to answer this question after the Bulgarian Parliament obliged the government to take measures to ‘divorce’ Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant from Rosatom and seek alternative suppliers of uranium cartridges.

The MPs also set deadlines. They envisage that the first delivery for Unit 5 will be made by April 2024. Potential suppliers should also ensure full independence of the technologies, licenses and components used from suppliers and legal entities registered in the Russian Federation or the ownership structure of which includes legal entities from the Russian Federation.

The Parliament’s decision explicitly states that potential candidates to refuel Kozloduy NPP with fresh nuclear fuel must guarantee that their product has a positive operating experience in VVER-1000 type reactors installed in the Bulgarian plant. Another important condition is that the entire chain of design, production and supply of nuclear fuel for the Russian units is completely independent in terms of technology, licences and components from suppliers and legal entities registered in the Russian Federation.

The truth is that Bulgaria has delayed the process of finding alternative nuclear suppliers for the Kozloduy NPP, despite the fact that the EU drew up a strategy for the diversification of Member States' energy sources back in 2014. However, the first steps in this direction were taken in 2015, when it was decided in the country that Unit 5 should switch to non-Russian fuel. In 2019, a Diversification Programme was signed with Euroatom, outlining 3 stages and a timeframe for finalising the process. The first stage was completed at the end of 2020. However, the second stage stalled because the US company Westinghouse came on the scene and proposed an alternative fuel. The evaluation process has to go through very arduous procedures in which the supplier has to provide a total of 49 mandatory technical and technological analyses of its product in stages. So far, the company has submitted only 29 to the Bulgarian nuclear regulator.

The situation has been further complicated by the emergence in the summer of this year of a new bidder to replace Rosatom - France's Framatom. In October, the company officially announced its intentions to secure the supply of Kozloduy NPP after 2024, when Bulgaria’s contract with Russia's TVEL, which is part of Rosatom, expires. This has created a stalemate in the Bulgarian energy sector and is about to cause an international scandal if anyone in the higher echelons of the state imagines that they might be sympathetic to one of the two candidates - Westinghouse or Framatom. And there is no shortage of concerns in this direction. Several governments, with their own decisions, have made it clear that the "match is almost played", since until recently only the American company offered an alternative to the Russian nuclear fuel.

When the second bidder appeared, the situation changed and Kozloduy NPP management was obliged to launch a tender. However, no such tender has been made public so far. In the meantime, dismissals have started in the senior management of our nuclear power plant. Whether they are related to the interests of Paris or Washington - we can only guess. The truth is that Bulgaria has no interest whatsoever in quarrelling with France, which dominates and literally pulls the strings of the European Nuclear Regulatory Agency. On the other hand, neither can we quarrel with the United States, the main geopolitical player in the situation of acute confrontation between Russia and the Western world.

In a situation of direct competition between the two companies, the Nuclear Regulatory Agency will have the final say. It should assess their products in terms of safety, efficiency and compatibility with the nuclear reactors in the country. However, according to nuclear industry experts, both companies do not meet one of the conditions included in the Parliament's decision - full technological and legal independence from Russia.

If the Nuclear Regulatory Agency chooses Westinghouse's cartridges, then experts from Russia's Kurchatov Institute will have to enter the fuel data into the reactors' system, as only they have such a contract with Kozloduy NPP and are authorised to carry out this activity. If, on the other hand, the NRA opts for Framatome, which cartridges are almost identical to the original ones, the question arises as to how the French will bypass the Russian TVEL, with which they are jointly involved in the production of French nuclear fuel.

There is another feature that politicians in Parliament have overlooked: in all likelihood, if only these two bidders remain, then one of the two types of fuel - TVSA and TVSA-12 - will be chosen for each of the two reactors, but it will necessarily have to be mixed with the old Russian fuel for four years, since only a quarter of the cartridges are replaced at each annual refueling.

The fate of spent nuclear fuel also remains an open question. According to Bulgaria’s current contract with Rosatom, this is a commitment of the Russian corporation. In the event of a change of suppliers, this will be the responsibility of the Bulgarian state.