Nuclear power in Europe

ISTANBUL, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Turkey’s Dogan Enerji signed an accord with Turkish, Belgian and Canadian firms on Wednesday to take part in a tender to build and operate Turkey’s first nuclear power plant, parent company Dogan Holding said.

Its partners in the deal are Turkish conglomerate Anadolu Endustri Holding, Brussels-based energy company Unit Investment N.V. and Canada’s Bruce Power, Dogan said in a statement to the Istanbul Stock Exchange. (more…)

CEZ Romania expects the construction of the third and fourth reactors at the Cernavoda nuclear plant to be delayed about one year. On the other hand, CEZ bought in Eastern Romania a wind energy project evaluated at 100 million euro.

“We haven’t been invited until now to continue the negotiations for the construction of the two Cernavoda rectors”, said the CEZ Development Manager, Doru Voicu, who added that the company also waits for a response from Termoelectrica, in order to establish a partnership and build two thermal plants. (more…)

PARIS (AFP) — Newly formed global energy giant GDF Suez of France is interested in nuclear power operator British Energy but only if the company is split up and sold off site by site.

“If the plan remains to sell British Energy in one go, then it will be sold without us,” said GDF Suez head Gerard Mestrallet in an interview with Les Echos daily to appear Thursday. (more…)

France’s two biggest energy groups, EDF and GDF Suez, are vying to build the country’s latest nuclear power plant, casting fresh doubt on their participation in Britain’s planned nuclear renaissance.

Last week President Nicolas Sarkozy gave the go-ahead for a second new-generation European pressurised reactor (EPR) on an existing site. It will be France’s 60th nuclear power plant. (more…)

French energy major Suez and nuclear engineering company Areva have signed an agreement, giving Suez a 5% ownership interest in the company that holds the Georges Besse II uranium enrichment plant.

The facility, built by Areva at the Tricastin site in France’s Drome department, is based on ultra centrifuge technology. Suez, through its energy services business line, is building the electrical installations, and supplying the fluid management systems and the HVAC and process cooling equipment of the new plant, which is scheduled for startup in 2009. (more…)

Romania is eyeing construction of a new nuclear plant with capacity of between 2,000 and 2,400 megawatts, whose first unit could come on line after 2020, the head of the state nuclear operator Nuclearelectrica said on Friday.

Along with some other former communist EU members, Romania is at the forefront of a renewed push for nuclear energy as an alternative to coal and gas which emit carbon dioxide, blamed for global warming. Nuclearelectrica operates Romania’s only nuclear power station in Cernavoda, where the first of two 706MW units went on stream in 1996. (more…)

Suez’s formal withdrawal from the bidding for British Energy further whittles down the official number of European energy groups that have expressed an interest in acquiring all or part of the nuclear power group.

In early April it was thought that British Energy was in discussions with five European energy companies about a possible bid or collaboration. The groups believed to be in the talks at the time were EDF, the French state-controlled energy group, RWE and Eon of Germany, Spain’s Iberdrola, and Centrica of the UK. (more…)

Hopes of a bidding war for British Energy were dealt a blow yesterday after it became clear that Vattenfall, Suez and Eon were not planning to bid for the UK nuclear group.

This leaves RWE of Germany and France’s EDF as the most likely bidders for the UK government’s 35 per cent stake in British Energy before the deadline of Friday, May 9. Both companies - which have power generation operations in the UK - declined to comment. (more…)

Hopes of a bidding war for British Energy were dealt a blow yesterday after it became clear that Vattenfall, Suez and Eon were not planning to bid for the UK nuclear group.

This leaves RWE of Germany and France’s EDF as the most likely bidders for the UK government’s 35 per cent stake in British Energy before the deadline of Friday, May 9. Both companies - which have power generation operations in the UK - declined to comment. (more…)

Bulgaria’s power grid operator the National Electricity Company (NEC) launched the final round of talks with Germany’s RWE and Belgium’s Electrabel, who are bidding to become strategic investors in Belene nuclear power plant, sources close to the procedure said, as quoted by mediapool.bg on April 3.

NEC wants the two candidates to clarify their offers for a 49 per cent stake in the company that will build and run Belene. The two 1000MW reactors of the plant are scheduled to be connected to the power grid by 2014. (more…)