Resilience of nuclear power plants to heatwaves
On the radar
- Today at 8am CET, Producer Price Index for June will be published in Romania.
- Today at 10:30am CET, Slovenia will release trade balance for June.
Economic developments
Nuclear power plays a central role in Central and Eastern Europe's energy mix, leaving the region with one of the largest shares of nuclear electricity production in the world, behind only France. However, despite intense summer heatwaves and dropping river water levels, CEE countries face vastly different operational risks depending on how their reactors are cooled. Plants relying on direct once-through river cooling—such as Paks in Hungary, Kozloduy in Bulgaria, and Cernavodă in Romania—are highly vulnerable to environmental conditions. Because all three draw directly from the Danube River, low flow volumes and elevated water temperatures frequently threaten their operations, requiring temporary power cutbacks or shutdowns to protect equipment and local ecosystems. Conversely, nuclear facilities in Czechia, Slovakia, and Slovenia are far better shielded from hydrological drought. Czechia and Slovakia utilize closed-loop cooling towers supplied by local river networks, which consume far less water; Czechia further protects its supply using dedicated reservoir systems as a backup. Slovenia employs a hybrid setup at the Krško plant. Thanks to these distinct cooling strategies, the region as a whole is not at the same widespread operational risk. Both Czechia and Slovakia have been net exporters of electricity with the later exporting electricity also directly to Hungary.
Market movements
The FX market was relatively calm yesterday, with the Hungarian forint recovering slightly from last week's losses, which were triggered by concerns that the Paks nuclear power plant might temporarily suspend operations due to low water levels in the Danube River. Government bond yields edged lower in Czechia, Hungary and Poland, although on a weekly basis they were largely unchanged. In Romania, an adviser to the prime minister confirmed that Fitch Ratings had initially considered a downgrade ahead of last week's rating review, citing the country's rising debt burden and persistently large fiscal deficits as key vulnerabilities.
Author
Erste Bank Research Team
Erste Bank
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