CORRECTED: Bulgarian power traders call for nuclear maintenance change

Correction: The nuclear outage dates in the third paragraph have been corrected.

LONDON (ICIS)–Bulgaria’s free energy market association ASEP has called for measures to tackle national power market disruption due to the coronavirus outbreak on 16 March.

In a letter to the Bulgarian energy ministry, regulator EWRC, Kozloduy management, and Bulgaria’s ESO, ASEP called for three measures:

– The planned maintenance of the 1GW unit at Kozloduy’s nuclear plant due 11 April-24 May to be moved forward

– An exemption from the obligations for parties to use bilateral contracts concluded on a centralised market at the Bulgarian Independent Energy Exchange so the maintenance can be moved forward

– The emergency situation to be taken into account when calculating prices for imbalances by the electricity system operator for the period of 13 March, 2020

ASEP said the first measure “will balance supply and demand in a situation of drastic reduction of electricity consumption”. It would also allow Kozloduy to produce and sell electricity when economic activity starts to normalise.

“This step will … lead to a balancing effect in the trading environment and stop the oversupply of energy as demand dips,” said an ASEP member.