The Slovak government has ordered the economy and finance ministers to draw up a plan for a new 1,200 MWe NPP by the end of October including a selection process for a supplier as well as timing and financing for the project.
The new plant would be built at the site of the Jaslovske Bohunice NPP. The site hosts two VVER-440 V-230 reactors, supplied by Atomenergoexport of Russia and Škoda, which were connected to the grid in 1978 and 1980. In 1976, construction started on two VVER-440 V-213 reactors built by Škoda and these began operation in 1984 and 1985. Atomenergoproekt designed all four units. Despite major upgrade work on the V-230 units, they were shut down in 2006 and 2008 as a condition of Slovakia’s accession to the European Union. State-owned Nuclear Decommissioning Company (JAVYS – Jadrová a Vyradovacia Spolocnost) owns the two closed units.
Power utility Slovenské Elektrárne (SE) carried out a major modernisation programme on the two V-213 units bringing the capacity of each unit from 440 MWe gross to 505 MWe gross (472 MWe net). SE is planning to extend the licences of the units to 2045 following further upgrading.
Anticipating the government’s decision to build a new unit, Prime Minister Robert Fico said earlier that the new unit would be fully state-owned. “We want to use the existing infrastructure of the atomic power plant in Jaslovské Bohunice because it significantly shortens the permitting procedures,” he noted. It should be a similar technology to that already in use, he added.
This is not a completely new project. The plan for the new nuclear unit in Bohunice has been under consideration for years by the semi-state Slovak Atomic Energy Company (JESS – Jadrová Energetická Spolocnost Slovenska) which was established in 2009. JESS is owned 51% by JAVYS and 49% by Czech utility CEZ JESS and originally planned to start building the new nuclear reactor as early as 2014.
However, both Fico and Economy Minister Denisa Sakova are insistent that the new unit should be entirely state-owned, which would rule out involvement of JESS. “The government wants to manage the decision so that it is completely owned by the Slovak Republic. We have had experience here from the energy crisis, which clearly states that the state should have these strategic enterprises and elements of critical infrastructure in its hands. And that’s why we would like to build that new nuclear unit with 100% state participation without any other companies,” Sakova said. This also raises questions over the potential role of SE, which is owned only 34% by the state through the National Property Fund, and 66% by Slovak Power Holding BV.
She said the supplier of the new unit would be picked in a tender, but that Russia’s Rosatom would be excluded. She said she expects French, US or Korean companies as potential bidders to build the plant. In this case, however, it would be a different technology from that already in place at Bohunice.
Apart from Russian companies, the only other company that could build a technology compatible unit at Bohunice is Škoda JS, which is part of the Czech Republic’s ČEZ Group. Škoda has to date manufactured and delivered 21 complete VVER 440 nuclear reactors and three VVER 1000 reactors. Since the 1990s, it has also focused on Western markets and technologies. Sakova stressed that the tender is “open” and “of course, we will evaluate the performance, price, quality and safety of the new unit”.
