“According to our estimations, the probability of larger nuclear energy capacities in this market triggering the growth of electricity prices is very low,” Annette Berkhahn said at an energy conference in Vilnius on Wednesday.
On the other hand, the global trends showed that nuclear energy projects also involved certain challenges, such as huge costs or difficulties in raising capital, she said.
“The approach towards nuclear energy has changed in recent years. Before the incident at Fukushima, nuclear energy was in revival, it reappeared in the agenda of many countries, firstly due to climate change concerns. After the Fukushima incident, the approaches changed in certain countries, particularly in Japan and Germany,” the expert said.
Poyry Swedpower, a Swedish subsidiary of Finland’s consulting and engineering group Poyry, is providing consultancy services on the designing and construction of a substation in Klaipėda as part of the NordBalt power interconnection between Lithuania and Sweden. Moreover, Poyry group also provides consultancy services in other energy and infrastructure projects being implemented in Lithuania.
Lithuania expects to build a new nuclear power facility in Visaginas by 2020.
As estimated, the new plant's electricity production cost during its entire 60-year lifetime should be 0.07-0.10 litas per kilowatt-hour, excluding another 0.10-0.15 litas in loan costs. The loans are planned to be paid back over 18 years. So it is estimated that the price of electricity generated at the new facility would total 0.17-0.25 litas per kWh until 2040.
Raimondas Kuodis, deputy chairman of the Board of the Bank of Lithuania, projects that the price of electricity generated by the new facility may reach some 0.3 litas per 1 kWh, with the loan costs included, in its first 20 years of operation.
The market price of electricity in the Lithuanian zone of Nord Pool Spot exchange reaches some 0.16 litas (EUR 0.046) per 1 kWh at present. The cost price of electricity generated by the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant (INPP) made up some 0.06 litas.
Lithuania imports some 80 percent of its electricity now, mostly from Russia. Last year imports accounted for 65 percent of electricity consumption.
