Škoda JS seeks to supply equipment for new Czech Dukovany unit and small reactors

Plzeň-based Škoda JS is seeking to supply equipment for the primary and secondary sections of new units at Czech nuclear power plants. It also wants to take part in installation, coordination, commissioning of individual operating systems and design work. Its CEO, František Krček, said this at a meeting with President Petr Pavel, who today toured the reactor hall at the company, which belongs to the ČEZ Group. Škoda JS is one of Europe’s leading manufacturers and suppliers of equipment for nuclear power.

Škoda JS has signed a memorandum of cooperation, including a confidentiality agreement, with KHNP, the preferred bidder to build a new unit at Dukovany. „We therefore cannot now specify what equipment we have discussed and will discuss supplying with the Korean side,“ Škoda JS spokesman Karel Samec said. If the Plzeň-based company wins contracts, it will hire 200 to 250 new employees and contribute more than CZK 100 million a year in additional tax, social security and health insurance payments to the state budget.

„Škoda JS’s role could also be expanded in the future to include our know-how for the maintenance of the new unit or units, because we have many years of experience in this area and a strong track record not only in the Czech Republic,“ Krček said.

The company is the general contractor for maintenance of the primary circuits at all six nuclear units in operation in the Czech Republic, where it services the technology. It also supplies equipment for primary circuit upgrades and spare parts to extend the units’ operating lives.

In Slovakia, Škoda JS is helping complete the fourth unit at the Mochovce nuclear power plant, whose third unit began commercial operation last year. Krček said this experience underpins the Plzeň engineering company’s ambitions for the Dukovany project. „It is only logical that we want to play an equally prominent role at home, especially, as we do in completing Mochovce. Together with other Czech companies, we supplied key components there and are playing a significant part in bringing the units into operation,“ he said. Krček said Dukovany would also generate contracts for other Czech Škoda JS subcontractors.

The company also expects its manufacturing and engineering capacity to be significantly involved in ČEZ’s joint project with British company Rolls-Royce to produce small modular reactors (SMRs). According to Samec, it is already preparing its facilities for this and has begun major investments in machinery and the qualification of manufacturing processes. One advantage Škoda JS has in the field of small modular reactors is that it has previously manufactured and delivered 21 complete reactors similar in output and size to SMRs (VVER 440 type). „Technologies and processes needed, for example, to manufacture a reactor pressure vessel are already widely used in our production of casks for spent nuclear fuel,“ Krček said.

ŠKODA JS posted an operating profit of CZK 250 million on revenue of CZK 3.3 billion in 2023. The company will publish its results for last year in April. Founded in 1956, the company provides engineering, equipment and services for nuclear power plants, research reactors and spent nuclear fuel storage facilities in Central and Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, France, Germany, the US, Austria, Finland, Belgium, the UK, China, Armenia and other countries. It has manufactured and delivered 21 complete VVER 440 reactors and three VVER 1000 reactors. Since the 1990s, it has also focused on Western markets and technologies, and works with leading companies in the sector worldwide.

President Pavel received from the company a 40-centimetre-tall model of a VVER 1000 reactor, two versions of which it supplied to the Temelín power plant.