Plans to build a new reactor at Lithuania's Ignalina nuclear power plant must guarantee enough voltage to make participation in the project viable for Poland, a senior Polish minister said Tuesday in Warsaw, according to dpa. "For us, a key question in the Ignalina project is gaining guaranteed access to sufficient power for our needs," Poland's Economy Minister Piotr Wozniak was quoted by the Polish PAP news agency as saying. Poland is interested in participating in the construction of the new Ignalina nuclear facility on the condition it is guaranteed access to at least 1,000 - 1,200 megawatts of electrical power, according to Wozniak. Total power at the facility should be high enough to serve all four states interested in the project, including EU members Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and by far the largest country, Poland, he said. Baltic neighbours Estonia and Latviae joined Lithuania in the project to build a new Ignalina reactor in order to ensure a major electrical power source for the region after 2009 shut-down of the existing Soviet-era reactor. Poland later joined the project which foresees the construction of an 800-1,600 megawatt facility costing 2.5 - 4 billion euro. Minister Wozniak also said Tuesday that Poland would need three months to review a Lithuanian law on the new Ignalina atomic energy facility. According to it, host Lithuania will have a 34 per cent share in the facility while its remaining three partners will hold 22 per cent each. In December the four states established a consortium of four companies with Estonia's Eesti Energia, Latvia's Latvenergo, Lithuania's Lietuvos Energija and Poland's Polskie Sieci Elektroenergetyczne (PSE) agreeing to hold an equal 25 per cent stake in the new Ignalina plant.
