Gov’t targeting operation of second reactor in 2040s
Slovenia’s state-owned power company GEN Energija is to make public research showing that the location of the existing Krško nuclear power station and a planned new reactor is safe from the point of view of seismic activity.
The company also said it will also publish further studies related to various aspects of the new-build project before a final decision is taken and a planned referendum is held.
GEN Energija said that, at the request of the Ministry of the Environment, Space & Energy, a series of documents related to various studies and reviews will be published on the new-build project website by October to enable people to make an informed decision in the referendum.
Slovenia wants to build a new nuclear plant at the Krško site, in the east of the country, and is planning a referendum on the issue, although no date has been set. The new build project is known as JEK2.
In an update on its new build plans GEN Energija said that to assess the seismic risk in the area of the existing Krško plant and the planned location of JEK2, two types of analysis had been used based on internationally established methodology – probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) and probabilistic fault displacement hazard analysis (PFDHA).
A PSHA was ordered by Slovenian nuclear utility Nuklearna Elektrarna Krško (NEK) in 1994 and 2004.
From 2008 to 2011, geotechnical, geological and seismological research was carried out. That research led one of the four partners, France’s Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire to express concerns about a possible active fault and suggest performing a PFDHA.
Other project partners including the Geological Survey of Slovenia did not express similar concerns. However, GEN Energija commissioned the PFDHA and an international independent review, which concluded that the probability of fault movements was “insignificant”.
‘Negligible’ Risk To Existing Or New Reactors
This was followed by another PFDHA in 2013, which concluded there were extremely small, negligible risks of exceeding surface displacements for engineering needs.
The authors of the study and the independent international reviewers agreed that the danger was negligible and did not pose a risk to the existing or to the new nuclear power station.
A large-scale PSHA project is underway, which began in 2015. The third and final phase of the project is undergoing an independent international review, which will be completed later this year.
The existing single 688-MW PWR at Krško, which was built in cooperation with US company Westinghouse, began commercial operation in 1983. The facility is co-owned in equal shares by the governments of Slovenia and neighbouring Croatia.
In January 2023, Slovenian authorities approved a 20-year operating lifetime extension to Krško, meaning the reactor unit could operate until 2043, a total of 60 years.
Slovenia has been considering the construction of a second plant at the site and earlier reports said a final decision on the project would be made in 2027 or 2028, with commercial operation in the mid-2040s.
