South Korea’s state-run Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) has won a lucrative public tender to build at least two nuclear reactors in the Czech Republic with the first unit scheduled to be online by 2036, the Czech government said on 17 July.

KHNP beat France’s state power company EDF in the tender launched in 2022 for one new nuclear power reactor at the Dukovany power station site, about 50 km west of Brno in the south of the country.

But Prague, which wants the Czech Republic to become more energy independent and wean itself off fossil fuels, said later it was seeking bids for a total of four new units: two for each of its two nuclear stations at Dukovany and Temelín, more than 100 km south of Prague in the southwest.

It has now decided that in the near term it will aim for two new unts at Dukovany.