NEW CLEAR

Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power was announced July 17 by the Czech government as the “preferred bidder” to build two reactors of up to 1,200 MW each at CEZ’s existing Dukovany site. KHNP beat EDF with a relatively inexpensive offer to build the reactors with guarantees and penalties if cost and time schedules are exceeded. The government said KHNP will build the two APR1000 reactors, each with a capacity of 1,055 MW, for around Koruna 200 billion ($8.76 billion) each. A final agreement on the two-reactor deal is expected to be signed by the end of March. Options for the possible construction of two additional reactors at CEZ’s Temelin site will be negotiated over the next two years, the government said. CEZ finance director Martin Novak said in an Aug. 8 conference call that these negotiations will only start after the initial agreement has been finalized. Tomas Kovalovsky, board chairman of the Czech Nuclear Association, a non-political pro-nuclear energy body of professionals and specialists, said in an Aug. 19 interview that he believes the option to build two further reactors will be used. “This is the intention of the government and there are not many other options to replace coal-fired power plants,” he said. The Czech government has still to finalize a financing model for the second Dukovny reactor. Novak said during the conference call that the same format approved by the European Commission for the first reactor, an interest-free state loan covering most of the construction costs, matched with a long-term power purchase agreement between the state and reactor operator CEZ, is the only option possible. Questions have been posed about KHNP’s ability to create a supply chain and recruit a workforce in Europe, where the company has no previous construction record. The head of the Czech State Authority for Nuclear Safety, Dana Drabova, stressed in a July 17 interview with Czech broadcaster Ceska Televizie that close cooperation with CEZ will be crucial for KHNP to gain all the licensing authorizations required. In a July 23 interview with Czech public service radio broadcaster, Cesky Rozhlas, Drabova mentioned another potential hurdle, KHNP’s legal battle with Westinghouse over intellectual property rights in the APR1000 reactor design. Westinghouse argues that the APR1000 is based on original Westinghouse designs and know-how and that KHNP has no right to offer such a reactor outside of its home market. Drabova said in the interview that she hoped the legal battle is resolved by Westinghouse being offered contracts on the Czech reactor project, a strategy that was used when KHNP secured a deal to build four APR1400 units in the United Arab Emirates. The APR1000 is a smaller-capacity version of the APR1400 deployed in South Korea and UAE. *Nucleonics Week, 2024-08-21