Overview
- Romania has been left without domestic nuclear generation after operators carried out controlled shutdowns at the Cernavodă plant because Danube flows fell below levels needed for safe cooling.
- Bulgaria’s Kozloduy plant will reduce output by about 120 megawatts at Unit 5 to protect condenser cooling as the Bulgarian stretch of the Danube remains at critically low levels.
- Plant operators and officials stress the steps taken have been controlled and do not pose immediate nuclear safety risks, with reductions aimed at preserving non-nuclear cooling systems.
- Governments and grid operators have responded with short-term fixes, including restarting coal and hydropower units, boosting electricity imports, emergency riverworks to redirect flows, and urging consumer cuts to avoid blackouts.
- The episode exposes a wider vulnerability of river-cooled baseload power to extreme drought and is pushing calls for changes such as deeper intakes, alternative cooling designs, more grid connections, and water-management planning.