EDF Loses out to Korea's KHNP for Czech Nuclear Project

Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--France's Electricite de France (EDF) (Paris, France) has been edged out by South Korean power major Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Company Limited (KHNP) (Seoul) in the competition to build a new nuclear power plant in the Czech Republic.

Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala announced that KHNP was picked to build one new reactor at the Russian-built Dukovany nuclear power plant because the Korean bid was "better in all criteria assessed." He also confirmed that the overall goal will be to build two units at Dukovany, with the possibility of adding two more at the Temelin nuclear power plant in the future. EDF and KHNP were the final two bidders in the running after Westinghouse Electric Company (Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania) was not invited to submit a bid for up to four units at the start of the year.

"We are deciding on a project for decades to come," President Fiala said. "The Czech Republic must be as energy self-sufficient as possible, and Czech households and the Czech economy must have sufficient energy supplies at an affordable price. This project will ensure this and with it a high quality of life, prosperity and competitiveness of our economy. Our goal was to come up with a solution that would be economically rational and provide enough energy at an affordable price. The offer of the Korean company KHNP meets these parameters. At the same time, it will bring a significant impetus to the development of the Czech economy thanks to the involvement of Czech industry to the extent of about 60%."

The Czech Republic relies on nuclear power for around one-third of its power today, using six reactors at Dukovany and Temelin. The government wants nuclear to supply half of its power in the future as it phases out coal-fired power and retires older reactors. The government said that significant savings can be achieved by building more than one reactor at a time. The price for a new unit from KHNP, if building two, was put at 200 billion crowns (US$8.65 billion), the government stated, with the price of electricity generated estimated at less than 90 euros (US$98) per megawatt hour (MWh).

"Currently, nuclear provides more than a third of our electricity consumption and in the future it should be about half," explained the Minister of Industry and Trade, Jozef Síkela. "That is why its development is crucial for us. The option of building two units on one site will also ensure that much of the work will not have to be done twice and will allow economies of scale to be exploited, leading to significant cost reductions. Specifically, about 20% per unit. That is why we have chosen this option. The possible use of the option for the construction of two more units can be decided, among other things, in connection with the development of the Czech energy sector."

The European Commission (EC) has given approval to the state aid for the first unit but will have to evaluate and sign-off on any planned state aid for a second. The first unit, using the APR1000 reactor with an output of 1,055 MW, received European Union (EU) certification last year, with regards to safety, economic criteria and constructability. The win is significant for KHNP as it is the first time that a Korean company has been chosen to build a European nuclear power plant. It also marks a blow for Europe's largest nuclear power company, EDF, which has not won a project for its EPR technology since winning the contract for Hinkley Point C in the U.K. in 2016, which is under construction. In 2022, it lost out to Westinghouse to build Poland's first planned nuclear power plant. For additional information, see November 22, 2022, article - Poland's First Nuclear Plant Project Goes to Westinghouse.

EDF's EPR technology has had a checkered past and experienced massive delays and cost overruns at its previous two European projects, Olkiluoto 3 (OL3) in Finland and Flamanville in France. Commissioning of OL3 last year was 12 years late and cost billions of euros more than originally planned while Flamanville's budget has swelled to four times the original and is running more than a decade late. Full commissioning is expected by the end of the year.

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