Nuclear: EDF and Koreans racing to build Czech nuclear reactors for 30 billion euros
Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) and Électricité de France (EDF) are vying for a contract to build nuclear power plants in the Czech Republic, estimated to be worth at least 30 trillion won. If KHNP wins the order, it will be South Korea's first nuclear power export in 15 years, following the Barakah nuclear power plant project in the United Arab Emirates in 2009.
According to the nuclear industry, Czech power company ČEZ is accepting revised offers from KHNP and EDF, which include plans to build four nuclear reactors, by the end of this month.
Initially, the Czech Republic planned to build a pressurized water reactor with a capacity of less than 1.2 GW (gigawatts) in Dukovany, south of Prague, and had received offers from Westinghouse, KHNP and EDF. Due to the challenges posed by decarbonisation, the Czech Republic revised its plan in February to build two reactors in Dukovany and two in Temelín, with each reactor having a capacity of less than 1.2 GW, practically quadrupling the initial request.
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Westinghouse was excluded from the bid review process because it did not submit a legally binding offer, meaning it did not want to make price commitments. As a result, the competition narrowed to a bilateral battle between KHNP and EDF.
ČEZ is evaluating offers from KHNP and EDF, focusing on costs and construction methods, followed by a comprehensive review of various factors such as price, construction period and more. ČEZ plans to submit the evaluation report to the Czech Government by mid-June, while the final decision on the preferred bidder is expected within a month from then.
The estimated construction cost for a set of two state-of-the-art reactors in South Korea is about 10 trillion won, but the cost of building the reactors abroad, which includes expenses for sending the reactors abroad employees and the purchase of local equipment/materials, is known to be at least 15 trillion won for two reactors.
We will certainly see very strong pressure from the French government to ensure that EDF's offer is preferred over the Korean one. We will see what the strength of character of the evaluation body and the government will be.
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The article Nuclear: EDF and the Koreans in the race to build Czech nuclear reactors for 30 billion euros comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/nucleare-edf-e-i-coreani-in-corsa-per-costruire-i-reattori-nucleari-cechi-a-30-miliardi-di-euro/ on Mon, 22 Apr 2024 12:45:11 +0000.