A total of 30 Bulgarian and foreign electricity traders and local companies have bought electricity from nuclear power plant Kozloduy for the delivery by the end of this year, as the first move by Bulgarian Government to address the issue of soaring electricity prices.
NPP Kozloduy organized a tender for the sale of a significant amount of electricity for delivery during October, November and December. The asking price was significantly lower than the market price – around 95 euros/MWh, compared to the average on IBEX in September of 125.3 euros/MWh.
However, the result is not exactly as expected. Due to the huge interest, the average price reached 121.3 euros/ MWh, which is close to the average market price. Besides, foreign traders are among the buyers, which means that some of the electricity will be exported.
Since unit 6 of NPP Kozloduy was taken offline for regular maintenance earlier this week, practically a third of the power plant’s production in October was awarded at the tender. The other two thirds are intended for a regulated market (to cover household consumption). This means that NPP Kozloduy will not supply electricity to the day- ahead market during October.
A tender for 300 MW of baseload capacity was divided into 30 packages with 10 MW each, which means that a total of 30 companies managed to buy electricity at the fixed price for the last quarter of the year. According to IBEX rules, the names of buyers cannot be revealed.
It is estimated that a fifth of the packages was bought by foreign electricity traders – Alpiq, Danske Commodities and MET. Among sure buyers are local electricity suppliers – CEZ, EVN and Energo-Pro, as well as some large industrial consumers.
It is interesting that energy companies related to businessman Hristo Kovachki did not participate in the tender, although they previously were regular buyers at tenders organized by NPP Kozloduy.
