Nuclear Monitor #928
Jan van Evert
The Czech state-controlled company EDU II and Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) signed final contracts on June 4th to build two new nuclear power plants.
The deal, worth €15.7 billion, is crucial for the country that relies on nuclear power produced by the southern Dukovany and Temelin plants for 40 percent of its electricity consumption. The contracts were signed in great haste and online, just hours after a court rejected a complaint by the French company EDF and returned it to a lower-instance court which is due to pass its verdict on June 25.
EDF, which had submitted an offer to supply its EPR nuclear plants, had challenged the tender and won the injunction from a lower court last month. The signing of the contract, that was planned for May 7th, had to be cancelled, with a South Korean delegation already en route to Prague. But EDF has also contested alleged state support for KHNP, illegal in the EU, in a complaint to the European Commission. It claims that KHNP’s offer was so low that it implied state aid. A good point: a recent report commissioned by the British government states that the average cost to build a nuclear power plant is 15 to billion euros.
“Chances that KHNP will not build the units in the end are still considerable, despite the signature”, Petr Barton, a data economist at the Datarun analytical platform, told AFP. A day after the signature, Czech Industry and Trade Minister Lukas Vlcek told Czech Radio there were “several potential risks” to the deal. “I think it will constitute a rather complex legal problem”, said Jiri Gavor, who leads the Association of Independent Energy Suppliers.
Prague expects construction to begin in 2029 and the first unit at Dukovany should be in operation in 2036. “The Czech state is taking 80 percent ownership of the Dukovany II power plant project,” said Vlček.
The fact that KHNP wants to build two large nuclear reactors in the Czech republic is remarkable, considering that it has recently withdrawn from similar projects in The Netherlands, Slovenia and Sweden. Another bidder, Westinghouse, was eliminated from the competition earlier.
