Fiala: government will know by the end of August how many nuclear units will be built in Czechia

The government will know by the end of August how many nuclear units will be built in Czechia under the current tender for their construction. Prime Minister Petr Fiala (ODS) said this today in Prague at the Czechia at a Crossroads II conference. In the current tender, France’s EDF and South Korea’s KHNP have submitted bids for one to four units.

One new nuclear unit is due to be built at Dukovany, while a larger-scale project could see up to two units built at Dukovany and two at Temelín. Both companies submitted bids in the tender at the end of April, and energy company ČEZ is now assessing them. ČEZ confirmed to ČTK today that it will submit the bids to the government on Friday, together with its own recommendation.

Fiala called the nuclear tender the project of the century. One unit at Dukovany—the minimum option—should generate nine terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity a year, which Fiala said would cover a tenth of current domestic consumption. At the same time, the government invited bidders to submit binding offers for up to four units, which the cabinet says could bring savings of up to 25 percent. „We are currently assessing whether to extend the tender to include more units and how many we will build. We will know by the end of August,“ the prime minister said.

Fiala said the energy sector also faces a medium-term challenge in ending the use of coal. „It doesn’t matter what people think about it; the numbers are what matter. Mining is gradually becoming uneconomical in practically all locations,“ he said.

The output of existing coal-fired power plants should therefore be replaced by combined-cycle gas-fired power plants. An amendment to the Energy Act should speed up their construction, and the Ministry of Industry and Trade will present it in the coming weeks, according to Fiala. „They have to work on it quickly so that we don’t become dependent on someone for energy again,“ the prime minister said.