Temelin tender process progresses

24 February 2010

Czech utility CEZ announced that all the reactor suppliers who had applied to participate in the public tender for a contractor for two new units at its Temelin nuclear power plant had met the qualification conditions and advanced to the next stage.

 

Temelin

The existing Temelin units (Image: CEZ)

CEZ launched the public tender in early August 2009. The company said that the exact type of reactors and their capacity would be determined during the tender process, but the units would be Generation III pressurised water reactors (PWRs). The deadline for applications to participate in the tender expired on 30 October.

 

Having completed its review of the application, CEZ has now confirmed that all the bidders it had received had met the qualification criteria and could continue to participate in the tender process.

 

CEZ has not officially revealed the identities of bidders. However, according to the Czech News Agency (CTK), CEZ earlier stated that it had received applications from no other parties except those who had publicly declared their interest. These were Russia's AtomStroyExport (ASE), in a consortium with Czech company Skoda JS and Russia's Gidropress, as well as France's Areva and US-based Westinghouse, a unit of Japan's Toshiba.

 

Westinghouse put in a bid based on its AP1000, planned for the USA and under construction in China. ASE said its bid was based on the MIR-1200 (Modernized International Reactor), a new name for the third generation PWR model under construction at Leningrad Phase II and Novovoronezh Phase II (VVER-1200 V-392M). This is the same design, ASE said, as offered in Finland, Turkey and planned for Kaliningrad. Areva has also put in a bid for its Evolutionary Pressurized Water Reactor (EPR), currently under construction in China, France and Finland and planned for the USA and UK, among others.

 

Westinghouse has confirmed that it had received confirmation from CEZ on 18 February that it had successfully complied with the qualification requirements.

 

According to CTK, CEZ will launch talks with the bidders in May and will invite them to submit their bids in the autumn. Bids are expected to be filed in the spring of 2011 and a decision on the winning bid will be made at the beginning of 2012. It said that a contract will be signed in the spring of 2012. CEZ said earlier that it expects the entire administrative process to last some seven or eight years and that construction of the Temelin 3 and 4 could be completed in some 15 years.

 

The Temelin plant was originally intended to house four Russian-designed PWRs, but plans were scaled back to the current two units following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. This means that certain infrastructure is already in place for the two new units, CEZ said.

 

Researched and written

by World Nuclear News