The new management of the state-controlled company Vodohospodarska Vystavba has cancelled the international tender for the general overhaul of the Gabcikovo hydro-electric power plant due to many shortcomings and flaws.
A spokesman for EPH Daniel Castvaj informed the vEnergetike.sk portal that the 1.47-billion-euro package would be sufficient to cover the completion of the Mochovce project. It also includes a 267-million-euro reserve in case the budget is raised again.
Sberbank, which lent money to Slovenske Elektrarne to complete the Mochovce NPP, started requiring not only individual parts of the company as a guarantee, but also the company’s shares, Economy Minister Sulik says.
The power utility Slovenske Elektrarne will be able to load nuclear fuel in the third nuclear unit of the Mochovce NPP at the end of April at the earliest, company’s Director General Branislav Strycek says.
According to Karol Galek, creation of the state energy holding company in which companies operating on the free market would merge with the regulated ones would only cover up the real situation.
The Supreme Audit Office of the Slovak Republic (NKU) states that no stances, respectively recommendations of the state representatives that would prove some reservations about the failures in the completion of nuclear units in Mochoce were found.
The Economic and Social Analyses Institute (INESS) states that although the two rounds of privatisation in Slovakia were accompanied by scandals and fraud, Slovakia’s economy is now in a better condition than it would be without them.
The power producer Slovenske Elektrarne will be allowed to start loading nuclear fuel into the third Mochovce nuclear unit at the end of April 2021 at the latest. This will take place only once all the permissions without any objections and challenges of the participants of the proceeding are granted. Nuclear fuel loading will be postponed to July-August 20201 in case of some appeals.
Economy Minister Richard Sulik confirmed that he had received several information in connection with the completion of the Mochovce NPP from the Slovak Intelligence Service (SIS). However, the safety of the nuclear units in Mochovce was not the problem.
The team of IAEA experts identified eleven fields of good practice and 22 shortcomings in their report published by the Slovak dominant electricity producer Slovenske Elektrarne.
The Mochovce nuclear unit generates 7 percent more electricity without increasing the reactor’s output, thanks to improved efficiency of the non-nuclear part of the power plant. The electric output of the second Mochovce unit rose from 470 to more than 500 MW.
Five years will have passed in January 2021 since the government led by Robert Fico “in(voluntarily)” took over the operation of the Gabcikovo hydropower plant from the power utility Slovenske Elektrarne and handed it over to the state-controlled company Vodohospodarska Vystavba.
Slovakia’s Prime Minister Igor Matovic wants to establish a nuclear alliance that will protect countries using nuclear energy from being called polluters. Matovic believes that France is our closest ally.