Sergey Simaranov, Director General of TechnoConsult

– Aspiration of world’s big power concerns to obtain stakes in NPPs is quite natural

RWE Power (Germany) has become a strategic investor of the construction of Belene NPP in Bulgaria. Bulgarian Economy and Energy Minister Petar Dimitrov says the company will hold 49% of the plant’s shares.

The aspiration of world’s big power concerns to obtain stakes in NPPs is quite natural. Such projects have two basic components. One of them is economic component: energy keeps growing in price and this makes NPPs increasingly attractive for investors. The second component is politics: the world’s countries are trying to diversify their energy sources. So, in this light, the decision of the Germany company to invest money in Belene project was quite reasonable.

I think that the fact that a big Germany company has decided to finance a project implemented by Russian Aromstroyexport shows that they in the West trust Russian nuclear technologies. And we must justify this confidence. The high marks given by western experts to our NPP-2006 project (the project that is being implemented in Bulgaria) will certainly enhance the value of our nuclear technologies on the world market.

The success of Belene project may be a good basis for the construction of an NPP in Germany. For the time being, the German company is trying to preserve Germany’s the nuclear potential.

Today, the world’s countries are actively diversifying their energy sources and nuclear power plants are part of this policy. I think that Belene project is quite interesting and will allow Bulgaria to sell electricity to other European countries. I am sure that NPPs will have an increasingly big role in the global diversification policy and their share on the general electricity market will be steadily growing.