Vlček: Dukovany expansion to be funded from the Czech state budget for the next 15 years

The costs of building two new nuclear units at the Dukovany power plant will burden the state budget for roughly the next 15 years. They could first show up in the state budget in 2026 or 2027. The state has prepared agreements to enter into future contracts that are intended to secure 30 percent of the contracts for Czech companies. Industry and Trade Minister Lukáš Vlček (STAN) said this on Czech Television's Otázky Václava Moravce programme today. However, the final contract with South Korea's KHNP, which the company is due to sign with the state on Wednesday, 7 May, does not guarantee subcontracts for Czech companies. According to Vlček, agreements to enter into future contracts for Czech companies will also be ready when the contract with KHNP is signed,

Construction of new nuclear units in Czechia is expected to be the country's largest contract. At current prices, the cost of the currently preferred plan to build two reactors at Dukovany is 400 billion crowns. The first unit at Dukovany is expected to be completed in 2036.

"Over roughly the next 15 years, state budgets will have to account for this project being carried out, at a time when the Czech state is taking an 80 percent ownership stake in the Dukovany II power plant project," Vlček said on the programme today.

ČEZ is to retain a 20 percent stake. According to Vlček, the state has a financing schedule ready for the project. Over the next four years, it envisages further design work so that construction of the nuclear units can begin, he added.

Patrik Nacher, deputy chair of the ANO parliamentary group, welcomes the completion of the Dukovany project. On the programme, however, he criticised the lack of a guarantee for subcontracts for Czech companies in the final contract directly with South Korea's KHNP. He considers the discussed 30 percent insufficient. According to economist Markéta Šichtařová (Svobodní with SPD), the new nuclear units will only replace the existing units as they reach the end of their service lives, unless their lifetimes are extended somehow. In her view, completing the Dukovany project will not bring down energy prices.

According to Vlček, agreements to enter into future contracts for Czech companies, for example for the turbine island, will also be ready when the contract with KHNP is signed. "We are at that 30 percent threshold," Vlček added. He said follow-on projects would secure further contracts for Czech companies. "Transport infrastructure projects are under way in the Třebíč region, with investment of around 15 billion crowns, and Czech companies will be and already are the main participants," Vlček said. He considers the overall target of involving domestic companies in 60 percent of the entire project realistic and achievable.

According to Vlček, nothing should prevent the contract with the Koreans from being signed on Wednesday, 7 May. French company EDF has filed a lawsuit with the Regional Court in Brno against a decision by the Office for the Protection of Competition (ÚOHS), which rejected its objections to the nuclear tender for new units at Dukovany. "I have no information that there should be any threat or delay," Vlček said.

The government decided last July to build two new nuclear reactors. It preferred the offer from South Korea's KHNP over EDF's bid. It had already excluded another bidder, Westinghouse, from the competition.