[2] Kozloduy NPP currently manages two pressurized water reactors with a total gross output of 2,000 MWe and 1,966 MW net.

Ground was first broken on October 14, 1969, and in April 1970, large-scale construction activities began, in which over a hundred thousand workers and engineers participated.

Kozloduy NPP previously operated four older reactors of the VVER-440/230 design, but under a 1993 agreement between the European Commission and the Bulgarian government, Units 1 and 2 were taken off-line at the beginning of 2004.

[10] On 21 October 2010, licenses for the shutdown reactors were transferred to Bulgaria state radioactive waste enterprise DP RAO, signaling the formal beginning of decommissioning work.

[13] Backed by these findings, the government had hoped to convince the European Commission to allow a postponement of the agreed pre-accession shutdown; from a legal and political standpoint, however, this proved untenable.

In principle, under the conditions of its Accession Treaty Bulgaria could request temporary derogation from its commitments in the event of serious economic difficulties arising within the first three years of membership in the union.

Thus, the Bulgarian government decided to install in Kozloduy the 1000 MW reactor that the Russian state company Atomstroyexport already produced for the Belene NPP.

In October 2013, the Ministry of Environment and Water approved the environmental impact assessment report on the investment proposal for Unit 7, thereby giving a green light for its construction.