The government does not yet have a clear timeline for restarting the nuclear power plant (NPP) Cernavodă, which was fully shut down on August 13, after the first reactor was shut down in July.
Cernavodă covers some 18% of Romania’s electricity consumption when it is in operation.
“We managed to get through this period more easily with the help of renewables; we were lucky enough with higher wind power output and the solar parks also helped us a lot (…) We compensated as much as we could for the shutdown of nuclear reactors with new capacities [set up in operations],” Energy Ministry state secretary Cristian Busoi said, cited by Economica, during a conference on September 22.
He added that more energy storage facilities would have helped the country better capitalize on its renewable power facilities.
The Cernavodă nuclear power plant, with an installed capacity of 1,400 MW, has been completely shut down for about a month and a half: one reactor at the end of July and the second on August 13, as a result of the very low flow of the Danube, which reached the lowest level in history.
It is extremely unlikely that the nuclear units will restart this month, with an advanced horizon being October, but it is not known when in October.
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