Rumen Tsonev, Chairman of the Board of Directors of KCM Holding, before FACTS: About the possibilities offered by lead-a

Can Bulgaria really play a key role in determining the energy policies of the EU. What is the future of nuclear energy in the EU? Such topics were discussed at the conference "Energy security - a basis for the development of European industry". The role of Bulgaria”. It was organized by Tsvetelina Penkova, MEP from BSP and the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament. The forum was also attended by Rumen Tsonev, Chairman of the Board of Directors of KCM Holding. This is what he shared with FACTS.

- Mr. Tsonev, at the EU level there is more and more talk about how nuclear energy will develop, strategies with a vision are being developed, the RES sector is entering more and more. Where is the EU looking?
- The issue is extremely complex and is being explored in all its meanings. What I said at the forum in the European Parliament on the development of nuclear energy was that it is necessary for heavy industry, which works 24 hours a day, to be decarbonised, to be carbon neutral, to be provided with electricity for all those 24 o'clock. If we go in the direction of renewable sources of electricity, that is very good, but we must also look for the possibility of storing this energy.

- Is this emerging as the big problem…
- We have photovoltaics that work a lot during the daylight hours, at that time even a surplus is obtained, and this surplus must be able to be stored and be able to be used when there is no such generated electricity. There are different ways and possibilities to store electricity, and this great variety must be used in its entirety and fully. Here we are talking about possibilities to store energy in the form of hydrogen – this is one battery, larger batteries such as PAVEC can also be used. Larger amounts of energy are stored in them. I'm also talking about these possibilities that lead-acid batteries give. I'm talking about them because we have a huge resource to make them, and that resource starts from our mining. In Bulgaria, we are rich in such raw materials, we go through metallurgy, which is at the highest technological level in our country for the extraction of non-ferrous metals, we go through the enormous knowledge and opportunities that we have in our Research Institutes, including the Institute of Electrochemistry at the BAS, at the Technical University, etc.

- So we have everything to make quality batteries, but we don't make them. Is that how it comes out?
- We, for one thing, do not do them, and we have no efforts in this direction at all to do something even better, with which we could satisfy the needs of many countries of the European Union to a very large extent. But that's not the biggest problem either. The biggest problem in our country is the following. Currently, programs are being announced, which are funded to a large extent by the European Union with nearly 50% grants. With grants, you know they set the policy. When you give a grant for something, it means that you want that thing to happen.

- And to develop it?
- Such programs are currently being opened in Bulgaria. I give an example. Now, on March 14, a major program was announced to finance photovoltaic parks and installations for storing the electricity from those parks. What will happen? Photovoltaic parks with panels that are 90% made in China will be financed. The second thing is the batteries that will be used to store this electricity. They are also made in China. We're talking about lithium-ion batteries that are essentially either 100% made in China or 100% of the components for those batteries are made in China. That is, who do we stimulate, where does the European money go?

- Is that the question?
- You answer for yourself. And at the same time, when these auctions do not require the batteries to be recycled at the end of their useful life... What is going on? If there is one such requirement, no lithium ion battery can find a place in our life.

- How are these batteries recycled?
- They are practically not recycled because there are no established and developed technologies yet. So, I don't know if you know what happens to used batteries from electric cars…

- What…
- They bury them. And the time is waiting to come when technologies will be developed through which they can be recycled. Is this not a transfer of responsibility from our generation to those generations that come after us. That is why I say that one must think effectively. We can do the following because we have experience with lead acid batteries. They would hardly find applications in electric cars, although in the past we had some electric trucks, which are now called electric trucks, and everything there was lead-acid batteries. This is one option. But today technology is developing a lot and lead batteries are becoming better and better. They fall behind lithium-ion batteries if we talk about cars, but if we talk about energy storage, lead-acid batteries are much better. And most importantly.

Lead batteries can be recycled.

And lithium-ion batteries are not produced in Europe. None of these metals are produced in Europe - not cobalt, not nickel, not lithium, and lithium is the smallest part in these batteries. But these are all things that are not talked about, not commented on, passed over, and at the same time our industry begins to suffer because there is no consumption. So how can there be consumption when the policy with the grant schemes goes in the direction of things that are made in China. What more to comment.