The outage at the first reactor of Romania’s sole nuclear power plant in Cernavoda, initially estimated to last a couple of days after a cooling leakage problem was spotted on September 18, was prolonged until September 24. This has kept the electricity prices on the spot market close to the historic maximum levels.

Other generation capacities are undergoing planned outage and the electricity production is seasonally lower in Romania during the autumn season, which contributed to the deficit on the spot market.

The electricity price for Thursday evening (EUR 150 per MWh) was nearly three times higher than that in Hungary, which is part of the same trading region and provides most of the imported electricity to Romania these days, Economica.net reported.

Technically, Romania can import electricity from Hungary at a maximum rate of 656MW, while the nuclear reactor shut down for repairs has a net generating capacity of 700MW.

editor@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Nuclearelectrica.ro)