Contract with South Korea will be country’s largest energy investment to date and is said to be worth at least €15 billion
The Czech Republic’s competition authority has cleared the way for the signing of contracts with South Korea for two new nuclear power units at the Dukovany nuclear site after it rejected appeals by EDF of France.
The decision by the UOHS competition authority on 24 April confirms an earlier verdict that EDF appealed after it lost out to South Korea’s Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power (KHNP) in the tender in July 2024.
It means the signing of contracts for two APR1400 units at Dukovany can go ahead. The contract, representing what will be country’s largest energy investment to date, is said to be worth at least 400 billion crowns (€15bn, $18bn).
The contract was originally due to be signed by March. It has been subject to some uncertainty due to appeals by losing bidders EDF and US-based Westinghouse, along with political upheaval in South Korea and pressure by Czech firms over the level of localisation in the Czech Republic.
KHNP settled an intellectual property dispute with Westinghouse in January, removing a major hurdle to the signing of the Czech project.
Westinghouse had previously claimed KHNP had infringed on its intellectual property and needed permission to use Westinghouse technology in the APR1400.
“There is nothing at this point that prevents [state power company ČEZ subsidiary] EDU II from concluding a contract with the preferred bidder KHNP,” chair of the competition authority Petr Mlsna told a news conference.
He said the decision invalidated an injunction that had prohibited any contracts being concluded.
Mlsna said in a press statement that UOHS had made “a correct and lawful decision in the first instance”.
EDF can still challenge the contracting authority’s decision in the regional court in Brno, UOHS said. EDF has asked the European Commission to investigate KHNP's selection under the EU’s foreign subsidy regulation.
ČEZ welcomed the decision, stating that its preferred bidder was selected "from the very beginning” in compliance with applicable laws and the initial agreement, a spokesman said.
If finalised, the deal would mark South Korea’s first overseas nuclear power station project since 2009, when KHNP won a contract to build four APR1400 plants at Barakah in the United Arab Emirates.
The Czech Republic has six commercially operational reactor units: four Russia-designed VVER-440 units at Dukovany and two larger VVER-1000 units at Temelín. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the six units provide about 36.7% of the country’s electricity production.
