Russia is holding talks with European energy companies on building the Baltic nuclear power plant in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, the press office of Russia’s civilian nuclear power corporation Rosatom said on Monday, February 27, RIA Novosti reported.

“Currently, talks are underway with some major west European energy companies that have displayed serious interest in joining the project to build the Baltic NPP,” the press office quoted Sergei Boyarkin, director of the Rosatom program for managing engineering projects, as saying at a roundtable in the Latvian capital on nuclear power development in the Baltic region.

Russia started the construction of the two-unit Baltic Power Plant in Kaliningrad in 2010 a bid to combat an increasing energy crisis in the region. The units will each have 1,194 MW of capacity.

The first unit is to go into service in 2017. The construction of the second unit is planned to begin in 2012 and be completed in 2018. Each unit will have a service life of 60 years.