Dukovany NPP tender’s fallout on the World Nuclear Market

2025-11-14

Dukovany NPP tender’s fallout on the World Nuclear Market: South Korea entering European Market was stopped. Westinghouse to win it all? Is EDF still out there?

By Patricia Lorenz and Edvard Sequens

We are in the midst of what the Friends of the Atom call Nuclear Comeback. Let’s take a look at what is really happening.

After the failed tender for the construction of two units at the Temelín site in 2014, the Czech Republic organized another one with three bidders: EDF, Westinghouse and KHNP from South Korea.

In June 2025, the contract between EDU II, a subsidiary of ČEZ, and the winner of the tender was finally signed. KHNP, the South Korean reactor manufacturer, won the contract to build another reactor at the Dukovany site, or rather two reactors even though only one was tendered.

In response, competitor EDF not only revealed details about the construction of the reactors in the United Arab Emirates and stated that there had indeed been cost overruns of one billion US Dollars, but also persuaded the European Commission to open an in-depth investigation into illegal foreign subsidies in line with the 2023 Foreign Subsidy Regulation. The FSR reads as follows:

The Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR) (Regulation (EU) 2022/2560) became applicable on 13 July 2023. It enables the European Commission to address distortions in the internal market caused by foreign subsidies. The FSR ensures that companies receiving foreign subsidies do not gain an unfair advantage when operating in the EU, while keeping the EU open to trade and investment. Under Article 52(2) FSR, the Commission is required to publish a report reviewing the implementation and enforcement of the Regulation by 14 July 2026 and every three years thereafter.

Westinghouse (WEC) turned out to be the invisible winner in the background

Alerted by Friends of the Earth (FoE) South Korea which started a close cooperation on Dukovany with FoE Europe and Calla in the Czech Republic, information about the unfair deal for South Korea caused such a stir that the office of the new president, Chemyong, ordered the Ministry of Trade to launch an investigation in mid-August 2025. The investigation will examine whether the contracts signed with Westinghouse (WEC) were concluded properly.

However, the key question was the agreement with WEC which KHNP was forced to sign prior to the export contract with the Czech Republic. In the company’s long-term strategy, this contract which was won by KHNP was supposed to be price to be paid for entering into the European NPP market; thus the conditions were very favorable for the Czech side in comparison to the offers by WEC and EDF. Both, unlike KHNP, they refused to shoulder all extra costs which usually accompany nuclear projects.

However, the battle was won but the war was lost. Because the contract concluded by KHNP with Westinghouse (WEC) stipulated that South Korea would no longer be allowed to export any more reactors to Europe, KHNP is now only allowed to conclude new contracts with the Philippines, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Egypt, Brazil, Argentina, Jordan, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa; the Korean company is prohibited from bidding for new contracts for nuclear power plants in North America, the UK, Japan, Ukraine, and EU countries, with the exception of the Czech Republic. Here two more reactors are possible for KHNP if the Czech Government makes use of the option which was already part of the NPP Dukovany tender: to build two more reactors at the Temelín site at some non-defined time in the future.

In addition, it was contractually agreed for a period of 50 years that the US company Westinghouse would also receive the following benefits for each export by KHNP: KHNP has to made a supply contract for goods and services worth around US$650 million, another US$175 million in technology licensing fees must be paid per reactor. It will also supply fuel to Korean-built reactors, as it is supplying the operating reactors in South Korea.^[1] That is where a lot of money lies for Westinghouse for decades.

According to South Korean media, this Intellectual Property agreement between WEC and KHNP also stretches into the far future (50 years actually): The agreement also includes a condition requiring Korean companies to pass a Westinghouse technology independence review when exporting next-generation nuclear technologies such as small modular reactors (SMRs).^[2] This article continues by explaining that „ The deal has sparked fierce debate in Korea’s nuclear industry and criticism has emerged that the former Yoon Suk Yeol administration signed a deal with “poison pill” clauses in order to secure the Czech contract. Some critics say that the agreement is a losing proposition for Korea, arguing that the large royalty payments and procurement obligations to Westinghouse will sharply reduce Korea’s profits from nuclear exports.“

Meanwhile in Europe

Now that KHNP has been driven out of the European market, who will deliver the nuclear renaissance? The European champion of all things nuclear, EDF, does not have any capacities to export reactors, has no design at hand and is burdened with the exploding costs of Hinkley Point C in the UK, where EDF has to cough up all the extra costs according to the very unfavorable contracts concluded around ten years ago. To indicate the order of magnitude: HPC started with the price tag of €20 billion ten years ago, current estimates predict it could end up as high as €53 billion after inflation. The winner takes it all, but Westinghouse has very little experience and no reliable supply chain, and: no Westinghouse AP-1000 reactor with its passive safety features has been licensed or built in Europe yet.

[1] https://westinghousenuclear.com/about/regional-operations/asia/ (accessed 24/10/2025)

[2] https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2025-08-19/business/industry/Critics-raise-concerns-over-Westinghouse-deals-impact-on-Koreas-nuclear-industry/2379046 (accessed 24/10/2025)