Romania: The European Investment Bank has approved 800 million euros for the modernization of the first unit of the Cernavodă Nuclear Power Plant.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has approved a loan of 800 million euros for a project of extensive modernization and extension of the operating life of the first reactor block at Romania's Cernavoda nuclear power plant. This decision represents a significant historical precedent and political signal, given that the EIB — which is owned by twenty-seven member states of the European Union — had for years been divided on the issue of financing nuclear energy

Although the bank still does not finance the construction of entirely new nuclear power plants, it is increasingly approving loans for modernization, improving safety and extending the lifetime of existing capacities, guided by the principle of "technological neutrality" in the decarbonization process.

Very likely for this reason — the CEO of Nuclearelectrica, Cosmin Ghita, stated that the involvement of leading international financial institutions in this project represents "a historic step for the development of the civilian nuclear sector in the region."

The Cernavoda Nuclear Power Plant uses Canadian technology for a heavy-water-moderated, pressurized reactor (CANDU). The first unit was commercially commissioned in 1996, with an anticipated operating lifetime of thirty years. Currently, only this one unit provides close to ten percent of Romania's total electricity production (while together with the other unit it covers around twenty percent of the country's needs).

The projected value of the entire modernization is three billion two hundred million euros. The aim of the project is to extend the operating life of the first unit to a total of sixty years, thereby ensuring stable and clean energy in the period from 2030 to 2060.

The modernization itself is an extremely complex and precise engineering undertaking. The third, key phase of the project is planned for the period 2027 to 2029 and will require a pre-emptive shutdown of the reactor, removal of nuclear fuel and heavy water. During this phase thousands of key components within the reactor core itself will be replaced – including all four hundred and eighty fuel channels and nine hundred and sixty feed tubes, thereby the reactor's infrastructure is practically renewed from the ground up.

Thus, due to their characteristics, CANDU reactors are considered highly economical: heavy water, together with graphite, is by a wide margin the best moderator, so CANDU reactors have excellent neutron economy and can thus use natural unenriched uranium. Also, these reactors have the capability of refueling without shutting down (the so-called "online refueling"). But what you don't pay on the bridge, you pay at the crossing, so CANDU reactors must undergo a very complex (and costly) refabrication process roughly every thirty years, during which the fuel channels must be replaced.

For the realization of such a large-scale project, Romania has established a multi-layer financing model and attracted global industry leaders. The financial structure, submitted for approval to the European Commission, includes grants totaling six hundred million euros, state guarantees for loans, as well as the so-called Contracts for Difference (CfD) for a period of thirty years, which the power plant guarantees stable revenues and protects the investment from regulatory changes. 

At the end of 2024, a contract for design, procurement and construction was signed with a consortium consisting of South Korean KHNP, Canadian AtkinsRéalis (which is also the holder of CANDU technology), Canadian Commercial Corporation and the Italian Ansaldo Nucleare. 

For the refurbishment of the turbo-generator plant, the French company Arabelle Solutions has been engaged, while a commercial loan agreement in the amount of five hundred forty million euros had previously been agreed with a banking syndicate led by JPMorgan.

Apart from the works on Block One, another reactor is operating at the Cernavoda site and there are two unfinished (Blocks Three and Four, whose construction was halted in the late 1980s), for which Romania is pursuing separate projects within a long-term energy independence strategy.

S.A.