Slovenia’s state-owned power company GEN Energija has revealed its preparations for a new nuclear power plant in the town of Krsko, near the Croatian border.

The move comes ahead of a referendum planned for November on whether the project should go ahead, website Nuclear Engineering International reports.

Slovenia already has a plant in Krsko, a 696MWe pressurised water reactor that was built in conjunction with Croatia and opened in 1981, when both countries were part of Yugoslavia.

The plan is to build a second, Krsko 2, on an adjacent site. This will have a capacity of 2.4GW.

Three companies are in the running to build it: the US’ Westinghouse, France’s EDF and Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power.

GEN Energija presented research showing that the proposed NPP would be safe from the point of view of seismic activity and said it will also publish further studies before October.

They’ll address the business case for the plant, flood safety, fuel availability, and waste management.

Aleksander Mervar, the chief executive of ELES, the operator of Slovenia’s grid, told RTV Slovenia he expected Krsko 2 to be finished before 2040, but warned that the electricity it produced would not be cheap.

He also said the government should start building gas power plants to prevent the need for large electricity imports.

Mervar said the capacity of Krško 2 should not exceed 1,600 MW.

He added that Slovenia should not experiment with small modular reactors until they were proven effective.