Westinghouse and EDF appeal against Czech nuclear tender process

The Czech Republic's competition authority says Westinghouse and EDF have asked for a review of the tender process for new nuclear units in the country. Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) was selected last month as the preferred bidder.

The competition office, UOHS, has not yet given details of the grounds for the two companies' objections, and said it was "currently familiarising itself with the content of both proposals".

Westinghouse issued a statement saying it had filed an appeal on the basis that "the tender required vendors to certify they possess the right to transfer and sub-license the nuclear technology offered in their bids to CEZ and local suppliers. KHNP’s APR1000 and APR1400 plant designs utilise Westinghouse-licensed Generation II System 80 technology. KHNP neither owns the underlying technology nor has the right to sub-license it to a third party without Westinghouse consent. Further, only Westinghouse has the legal right to obtain the required approval from the US government to export its technology".

There has been an on-going dispute between Westinghouse and KHNP over the issue of intellectual property rights, which is the subject of international arbitration, a process which Westinghouse says is not expected to conclude before the second half of 2025.

Reuters reported KHNP as saying it would "respond sufficiently to the dispute with Westinghouse to avoid negative impacts on the Czech nuclear project". There has not yet been a comment EDF on the situation.

The background

In October last year, Westinghouse, EDF and KHNP submitted binding bids for a fifth unit at the Dukovany nuclear power plant, and non-binding offers for up to three more units - another one at Dukovany and two at the Temelin nuclear power plant. Westinghouse was proposing its AP1000, EDF was proposing its EPR1200 reactor, KHNP was proposing its APR1000. But in February the Czech government announced it was changing the tender to be binding offers for four new units, with Westinghouse not included because it "did not meet the necessary conditions".

Prime Minister Petr Fiala explained at the time that the decision to switch to binding offers for all four units was the result of the original tender suggesting that contracting for four units, rather than having separate processes, could have a 25% benefit in terms of costs.

In July, he announced KHNP as the preferred bidder, with contract negotiations to begin with the aim of signing contracts for the initial unit by the end of March 2025 - the target for test operation of the first new unit is 2036 with commercial operation in 2038. He said the winning tender "based on the evaluation of experts, offered better conditions in most of the evaluated criteria, including the price". The KHNP bid was for a cost of around CZK200 billion per unit (USD8.6 billion), if two units were contracted.

The Czech Republic currently gets about one-third of its electricity from the four VVER-440 units at Dukovany, which began operating between 1985 and 1987, and the two VVER-1000 units in operation at Temelín, which came into operation in 2000 and 2002. As well as the planned new units at Dukovany and Temelin, the country is also planning for the introduction of small modular reactors in the future.