Bulgaria's Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NRA) is drawing up a two-year, roughly 400,000-euro contract with US consulting firm Jensen Hughes. The firm will check what the agency already knows and what it still needs to learn about the next steps in licensing units 7 and 8 at the Kozloduy nuclear plant, NRA deputy chair Elizabet Tsvetanova told reporters.

Jensen Hughes has offices in Europe and has helped the US regulator license AP1000 reactors — the same type due to run at Kozloduy.

The contract covers approval of the AP1000 technical design for units 7 and 8, and later the steps that follow for building and starting them up, Tsvetanova said. "Under this contract we expect training programmes to be drawn up for the specialists we plan to hire, so we can fill the gaps in our expertise where we don't yet have it," she said. The agency also has to find such people and train them so they can take part in the licensing process.

Licensing of units 7 and 8 is already under way, Tsvetanova said. The NRA is currently reviewing an application to approve the site chosen for unit 8.

"We've also received an application for a licence to design both units 7 and 8," she said. Applications go through specially designed review programmes with several stages. The first stage of reviewing all the applications is done, and the agency has since asked for more information, some of which has already come in.

Once all the information is in, the agency will look at it as a whole and then decide whether to approve the site and grant a design licence for both units, Tsvetanova said.

NRA chairman Tsanko Bachiyski said the agency has been working on the AP1000 technology since the summer together with the European association of west European regulators. "We're looking at the AP1000 in light of European law. We've picked out a few features that need a closer look, to see whether there's a problem or not," he said. The US already has years of operating experience with this design. That's why the agency wants any improvements made during construction and operation of the reactors there to be reflected here too, he said.

Besides Bulgaria, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands and Poland are taking part in the joint effort, and Slovakia has also been invited to join. Bachiyski added that the assessment is based on publicly available information.