Bulgaria's nuclear regulator, NRA, is paying about 2.2m euros to US consulting firm Jensen Hughes under a two-year contract. The company will work out what knowledge and skills the agency still needs for the next steps in licensing units 7 and 8 at the Kozloduy nuclear plant, NRA deputy chair Elizabeth Tsvetanova told reporters.
Jensen Hughes has offices in Europe and has advised the US regulator on licensing AP1000 reactors — the same technology planned for Kozloduy.
Tsvetanova said the contract covers approval of the AP1000 technical design for the two new units, as well as the next steps in building and starting them up. The agency also needs training programmes for future staff, since it currently lacks enough specialists in some areas.
"The agency also faces the challenge of hiring such staff and training them well enough to do their job in the licensing process," Tsvetanova said.
She explained that the licensing process for units 7 and 8 is already under way. The agency is now reviewing an application to approve the chosen site for unit 8. It has also received applications for design permits for both units.
"The applications are being reviewed under specially designed programmes for regulatory review and assessment. Under these programmes, the review runs in several stages. The first stage of review has now been completed for all the applications. Based on this early review, we've asked for more information on all of them, and some of that has already come in," Tsvetanova said.
She added that once the agency has all the information it asked for, it will weigh the applications as a whole. Only then will it decide whether to approve the site and issue design permits for the two units.
NRA chair Tsanko Bachiyski said the agency has been working on the AP1000 technology since the summer together with the Western European Nuclear Regulators Association.
"We're looking at the AP1000 from the standpoint of European law. We've flagged a few features that need a closer look, to see whether there's a problem or not. There's a lot of operating experience with this design in the US, and one of our requirements is that improvements made during construction and operation are reflected," Bachiyski said.
Regulators from Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Poland and Bulgaria are taking part in this joint review of the AP1000, and Slovakia has also been invited to join. Bachiyski said the assessment is based on publicly available information.