WAR IN UKRAINE TRIGGERS ENERGY DILEMMA IN CENTRAL EUROPE

 

ANALYSIS

WAR IN UKRAINE TRIGGERS ENERGY DILEMMA IN CENTRAL EUROPE

Tim Gosling Prague BIRN March 15, 202207:59

https://balkaninsight.com/2022/03/15/war-in-ukraine-triggers-energy-dilemma-in-central-europe/

 

The EU wants to accelerate the green transition due to the war in Ukraine. But the V4’s reliance on Russian gas and reservations about renewables mean its long-term energy strategy with nuclear at its core is likely to remain largely unchanged.

 

Noting the bloc is handing the Kremlin nearly a billion euros a day, by some estimates, for oil and gas being used to finance the rockets and tanks tearing Ukraine to pieces, the EU has rushed to come up with a new energy strategy that will enable it to reduce the reliance on Russian supplies.

 

“We must become independent from Russian oil, coal and gas. We simply cannot rely on a supplier who explicitly threatens us. We need to act now to mitigate the impact of rising energy prices, diversify our gas supply for next winter and accelerate the clean energy transition,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

 

The European Commission’s proposal – complete with a typical effort at a snazzy name: RePowerEU –  has the acceleration of the development of renewable sources at its core, in line with the bloc’s climate policies. Reducing consumption, improving energy efficiency and boosting the use of hydrogen are other major elements.

 

It also lays out plans to invest in sourcing alternatives to the 150 billion cubic metres of natural gas the EU currently imports from Russia annually. The European Commission says the bloc has enough gas in storage to get through the rest of this winter, while dependence on Russia can be reduced by two-thirds, or 100 billion cm, by the end of the year largely through importing more liquefied natural gas (LNG).

 

“The EU could import 50 billion cm more of LNG (e.g. from Qatar, USA, Egypt, West Africa) on a yearly basis. Diversification of pipe sources (e.g. Azerbaijan, Algeria, Norway) could deliver another 10 billion cm of yearly savings on Russian gas imports,” the strategy reads.

 

The plan, which has the goal of dispensing with Russian gas entirely by 2030, if not earlier, is due to be discussed at the end of the week at the EU summit in Versailles, where it remains to be seen which of the proposals will survive.

 

The prospect of uncoupling entirely from Russian fossil fuels has been slammed as unrealistic by more than one Western European leader. That’s despite alternative sources and infrastructure being well developed in Western Europe, where many states are far less reliant on Russian gas than the 40 per cent share it has of the bloc’s market overall.

 

However, three of the Visegrad Group’s four members – Czechia, Hungary and Slovakia – buy 85 per cent or more of their annual consumption from Russia. Poland’s recent drive to reduce dependence has trimmed Russia’s share of its gas market to around 55 per cent.

 

That means the region’s economies and energy companies are likely to bear much of the brunt during any effort to shut off pipelines from the east.

 

Analysts at Capital Economics estimate that a total shutdown of Russian energy imports –  which is not on the cards – would double inflation in the EU and push the bloc deep into recession.

 

“Russia supplies about a third of Europe’s gas,” notes Fitch Ratings, pointing to the risks for utilities in Czechia and Slovakia, but “its share is above 70 per cent in many central and south-eastern European countries.”

 

Cheap and cheerful

While most countries in the region have long recognised the danger inherent in handing the Kremlin such leverage, the price advantage enjoyed by Russian pipeline gas has held back all but the most serious efforts in breaking that dependence.

 

That has left LNG infrastructure lacking in Central Europe. The Russian invasion has, however, quickly prompted announcements on kickstarting such investment.

 

Shortly after announcing the cancellation of Nord Stream 2, the massive Russian project to pipe an extra 63 billion cm annually beneath the Baltic Sea, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he would reinvigorate his country’s stalled efforts to build LNG terminals.

 

The Czech Republic, which has already built new pipelines in anticipation of carrying the extra flow from Nord Stream 2 to EU hubs, had already said it is seeking to buy into German or Polish LNG infrastructure.

 

Yet despite awakening these dormant plans, building LNG infrastructure will take years and require huge financing. And even if the capacity to replace Russian pipeline gas was in place, the Visegrad Group (V4) still wouldn’t be able to keep itself running on frozen gas alone over the long term, say some experts.

 

“LNG is not the answer,” contends Michael Labelle, an associate professor on energy issues at the Central European University. “The cost is simply too high.”

 

The EU strategy suggests that the main alternative to both pricey LNG and geopolitically-dicey Russian gas is to accelerate the development of renewables.

 

“The central component will be a reinforcing of the green transition already underway, which in turn is the core element of the next phase of European integration,” note analysts at The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies.

 

But while most CEE states are happy to reduce their dependency on Moscow, they’ll also likely struggle to follow the route that RePowerEU envisions.

 

Only a month ago, France proposed speeding up final agreements on the EU’s Fit for 55 climate policy package. The V4 responded with their own statement suggesting that such an idea is unrealistic.

 

The European Commission is pushing for countries to boost the development of solar and wind power. Under that remit, the bloc could reach 1 terawatt of solar capacity by 2030, some industry voices assert. The plan also calls for developing the use of biomethane and hydrogen.

 

But piling the increased costs of an accelerated transition on top of already spiralling energy prices risks undermining the renewables push across the eastern member states, who have long been lukewarm towards these alternative sources, for both economic and political reasons.

 

Labelle says Brussels needs to push more money into the region to help households pay for the transition, and it must also make sure that this cash is used correctly, in order to speed things up. “Without that,” he states, “the transition is going nowhere fast.”

 

No heating, no jobs

The readiness of the V4 to free themselves from Russia’s energy clutches varies widely.

 

Poland, long the region’s Russia hawk, has been working hard to reduce its reliance. Although over 50 per cent of the 20bn cm of gas Poland consumes annually is bought from Gazprom, those contracts are expiring at the end of this year with no plans to renew them.

 

Poland hopes to replace all of the Russian gas it currently buys by importing from Norway via the Baltic Pipe. Meanwhile, the country is in the midst of expanding its LNG terminal to 7.5 billion cm.

 

All of which has helped make Warsaw one of the loudest voices calling for Europe to bin Russian fossil fuels. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has warned that gas pipelines running from the east “also carry the blood of innocent people”.

 

Others have been travelling in the opposite direction, but are now attempting emergency U-turns. The Czech Republic spent the past few years preparing to help feed the bloc’s addiction by building new pipelines intended to carry gas from Nord Stream 2 to major European hubs.

 

However, the new government that took office in December is seeking to start diversification by buying into LNG infrastructure either in Germany or Poland. That fits with Brussels’ suggestion that member states should seek out additional LNG partnerships.

 

On the other hand, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban – who has made cheap utility bills a cornerstone of his political support – insists that he has no intention of reversing the country’s deepening dependence on cheaper Russian gas. In February, just weeks before the invasion of Ukraine, he was in Moscow to agree a a new gas supply contract with Vladimir Putin.

 

Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto insists that “if gas supplies from Russia stopped, there would be no heating and no jobs in Hungary,” and that the Hungarian people should not “pay the price of the war”.

 

 

Core ambition

Yet whether on the cusp of escape or stricken with Stockhausen syndrome, none of the Visegrad states has renewable development at the top of their agenda. Given the contradiction with RePowerEU, that suggests the unity across the EU produced by the war in Ukraine could be short lived.

 

“It’s a big victory for nuclear and renewables,” suggests Vaclav Bartuska, the Czech government’s energy security commissioner, regarding the potential end of Russian gas imports.

 

Despite the European Commission having controversially added nuclear to its taxonomy of green energy investment, the RePowerEU document doesn’t mention it at all. The Visegrad Group, however, is very clear that it views the technology, in particular the new advanced reactors like small modular reactors, or SMRs, that are being developed as the main means of replacing coal and gas in all four countries.

 

“The regional logic is that nuclear is the future,” says Labelle. “It makes sense if you have a lot of relatively poor, energy inefficient households.”

 

While Poland is close to substituting Russian gas, it still depends on coal for around 70 per cent of its electricity production. Warsaw hopes to reduce its use of coal – over 70 per cent of which is currently imported from Russia – via an ambitious plan to build up to six nuclear units by 2040, and has recently sought to accelerate its plans.

 

Prague is also trying to speed up its own long-delayed bid to add to its nuclear fleet, although like its northern neighbour, its aim of rapidly expanding nuclear capacity may be overly optimistic.

 

Although dozens of new nuclear units are on the drawing board in Europe, only one – Finland’s Olkiluoto 3 – has gone into operation in the past 15 years.

 

One of those delayed projects is Hungary’s Paks 2, and as on gas, Orban has flatly rejected calls to step back from his 2014 deal for Russia to finance and build the plant, despite the obvious difficulties Moscow will probably now have finding the necessary cash.

 

The Slovak government, meanwhile, had its mind focused when it was forced to break sanctions within the very first week of the invasion by allowing a plane carrying nuclear fuel supplies from Russian company TVEL to land.

 

The country’s two nuclear power plants produce over 50% of its power, and the only alternative is fuel from US-based Westinghouse. Government officials say they’re in talks with the company despite the fact that Westinghouse’s fuel costs significantly more than the Russian competition.

 

But how long the horror in Ukraine and European solidarity can sustain such an approach by the region’s governments remains to be seen. Could the crisis alter the course of Visegrad’s relationship with the energy transition in the long term, or vice versa?

 

“The 1970s oil crisis spurred huge investment in nuclear, and it could be that the situation in Ukraine could similarly spark a major new trend in energy strategy,” says Labelle.

 

And it does seem likely that the region will review some of its main assumptions, such as the focus on using gas to keep the wheels turning.

 

But overall, Central Europe’s medium- and long-term energy strategies, with nuclear in the driving seat, could remain largely unchanged – even if they gain a little more urgency.

 

Nuclear Dreams

 

Bulgaria: On March 13, Finance Minister Assen Vassilev said he’s collaborating with the Ministry of Economy and Industry on plans to build at least one new reactor at the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant. “If building starts in 2022, we might be ready to operate by 2028-2030,” he said. The plant currently operates two Russian-made reactors, made in 1987 and 1991, of 1,000 MW each. The plant’s four other units, of 440 MW each, were closed in 2007 over safety concerns, a year before Bulgaria’s accession to the EU. It’s a point of discussion whether the plant is modernised enough to work with anything other than Russian nuclear fuel. A planned new NPP at Belene will see two 1000 MW reactors built. In May 2019, the government issued a call for expressions of interest, with China National Nuclear Corporation, Framatome, General Electric, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power and Rosatom all reportedly applying.

 

Czechia: In September, a new law that addresses market failures that have been limiting the construction of nuclear capacity was approved. A national priority is the continued operation of the Dukovany NPP, where four VVER-440 reactors have operated since the late 1980s. Approaching 40 years of age, they need engineering work to extend their service lives by a further 20 years. The Industry Ministry said it will order next week the launch of a tender for a new unit at Dukovany. State power utility CEZ is set to hold a tender for the reactor supplier, negotiate a contract and receive all the required licences by 2024, so the unit can go into operation in 2036. With Russia and China barred from the tender, the other potential bidders are the US’s Westinghouse, France’s EDF and South Korea’s KHNP.

 

Hungary: Four nuclear reactors at Paks generate about half the country’s electricity. The Hungarian Atomic Energy Authority has extended the operating lifetime of all four reactors to between 2032 and 2037. In 2014, the government signed an agreement with Rosatom to build two new reactors at Paks II. A 10-billion-euro financing deal from Russia was agreed to cover 80 per cent of the anticipated project cost, with Hungary to repay the loan over 21 years of operation. The units were originally scheduled to start operations in 2025-2026, but the project is about five years behind schedule and with sanctions due to the war in Ukraine eviscerating the Russian economy, many wonder how the Kremlin can now fund such a loan.

 

Poland: The government has a policy to deploy up to six large reactors at multiple sites by 2040. In December, it was announced that the Choczewo municipality is the preferred location for the country’s first large nuclear power plant. However, Polish state-owned mining giant KGHM might get there first, after signing in February a deal with US nuclear firm NuScale Power to deploy four 77-MW small modular reactors, orSMRs, by 2029, possibly expanding the number to 12 later. The agreement paves the way for joint exploration of potential sites for the project, developing planning milestones, and estimating costs.

 

Romania: On November 4, Romanian state nuclear energy producer Nuclearelectrica and US firm NuScale Power signed a deal for Romania to receive SMRs by 2028. The plan is to build six modules, each with an installed capacity of 77 MW. Its development coincides with the phase-out of coal power plants in Romania. That came after another US-Romania agreement in 2020 to cooperate on the construction of two additional reactors at Romania’s Cernavoda nuclear power plant near the Black Sea and the refurbishment of Unit 1.

 

Slovakia: Four reactors at two sites, Mochovce and Bohunice, generate half of the country’s electricity and two more are under construction. In January, Slovakian regulators made the decision to permit commissioning of Mochovce unit 3, bringing to an end several years of delays to address appeals by the Austrian anti-nuclear group Global 2000. The first electricity is expected later this year.

 

Slovenia: In 2021, the Infrastructure Ministry issued an energy permit for the construction of a second reactor at Krshko – the country’s only nuclear power station. The construction of the second unit is part of Slovenia’s long-term climate strategy adopted in 2021. Slovenia expects to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emission by 2050. This plan needs a massive restructuring of energy sources.