SIMFEROPOL, June 23. /TASS/. Authorities in Crimea have definitively renounced the idea of a nuclear power plant in the peninsular republic, the local Minister of Fuel and Energy, Sergei Yegorov said on Tuesday.
"We rule out a possibility of building a nuclear power plant in Crimea," he told TASS. "In the first place, this is very expensive. Secondly, there’re other solutions /to the peninsula’s electric power supply problems - TASS/ and we’re already implementing them."
The project of the Shchelkinsky nuclear plant that was launched many years ago has grown obsolete, Yegorov said.
"The site where construction works were launched and where one power-generating unit was almost 80% complete is impossible to rehabilitate now," he said. "These projects have outlived themselves today and they’re off the agenda. We’re not even discussing them."
At present, Crimea gets the bulk of electricity it consumes from Ukraine on the basis of an agreement signed at the end of last year. The republic’s own power generation stands at around 180 to 190 megawatts a day.
Commissioning of a new 470 MW power plant and reconstruction of the existing thermo-electric plants will bring the output of electric power in Crimea to 950 MW per day.
In addition to it, an energy bridge between Krasnodar territory and Crimea will make it possible to supply about 800 MW of electric power per day.