Prague — The most likely threat to the start of operations at Slovakia's Mochovce-3 reactor was public consultations, including with neighboring countries such as anti-nuclear Austria, a manager at the regulator said in an interview Monday.
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Registro"It is still not possible to say whether those consultations will cause a delay to the latest targets" for the start of operations at the 471 MW unit, Mikulas Turner, head of international and regulatory affairs at the Nuclear Regulatory Authority of the Slovak Republic (UJD), said.
Slovakian nuclear operator Slovenske Elektrarne said April 15 that the VVER V-213 could be subject to new delays of up to eight months, adding it could start commercial operation at the end of 2019 under the most optimistic scenario and during the first quarter of 2020 in the worst case scenario.
The adjacent Mochovce-4, with the same capacity as Mochovce-3, was expected to start operation around a year later, under the latest timetable.
SE also said in April that while it might be technically ready to load fuel into Mochovce-3 in the summer of 2019, other factors linked to licensing and possible objections from anti-nuclear protesters in Austria could cause delays.
SE's previous target for Mochovce-3 was that it should start operating in the second quarter of 2019, with Mochovce-4 starting operations around 12 months later.
April 2019's new targets resulted in Eur270 million ($298 million) being added to the overall budget for the two units to be completed, taking the total to Eur5.67 billion.
Turner said the regulator's previous concerns about the state of work on Mochovce-3's secondary circuit had eased following progress in new work.
The regulator's 2018 annual report, published August 16, said "insufficient preparedness of some of the secondary circuit equipment" represented a "limitingfactor" as regards getting Mochovce-3 readiness for operation and could cause further delay.
-- Oliver Adelman, oliver.adelman@spglobal.com
-- Chris Johnstone, newsdesk@spglobal.com
-- Edited by Daniel Lalor, daniel.lalor@spglobal.com