A year ago, Elektrárna Dukovany II, a. s (EDU II) filed its application for a permit to deploy a new nuclear power plant, with the State Office for Nuclear Safety. The preparations themselves, however, started five years earlier, in 2015. The background documents for the documentation, which itself has over 1,600 pages, are the work of thirty experts from EDU II, ČEZ, and other institutions, such as the Water Research Institute, Masaryk University, or ÚJV Řež. EDU II has now earned the permit.
“It is a major milestone. We paid a great deal of attention and effort to the preparation of the documentation and to the administrative proceedings themselves. Furthermore, we are as transparent as we can be: for example, we published the entire Contracting Security report and other materials to which the public have free access now,” says the Chairman of the Management Board and CEO of ČEZ, Daniel Beneš.
Among other things, the documentation describes and assesses whether the locale is suitable for the deployment of a new nuclear power plant. For example, it examines natural conditions, including arrangements to secure water, describes and evaluates the project concept, quality assurance issues, and is concerned with the preliminary impact of the operation of the facility on the population and the environment or with the retirement of the power plant in the future.
The subject of the permit is the deployment of two nuclear facilities, each with one pressurised water reactor with a maximum electrical capacity of up to 1200 MWe.
“On the table now is the construction of one block with a capacity of up to 1200 MWe; nevertheless, the permit pertains to two nuclear facilities. First, this is how we have drafted the documentation since 2015, and, above all, it allows us to take into account any future energy and climate goals, down the road,” says CEO of EDU II Petr Závodský.
The first official milestone was the establishment of the subsidiary Elektrárna Dukovany II in 2015, which is responsible for the preparation of the construction project. The company has an EIA opinion (environmental impact assessment) which it obtained in 2019. Another key step was the signing of agreements between Elektrárna Dukovany II, ČEZ, and the State, represented by the Ministry of Industry and Trade, last July. The obtaining of a permit to deploy the blocks pursuant to the Atomic Act should be followed by the announcement of a tender for the contractor and the commencement of zoning proceedings pursuant to the Building Code.
Both the documentation pertaining to the present permit, including the Tendering Security Report, as well as other materials, are available at ČEZ’s website at www.cez.cz/njz.
Both professionals and the general public thus have at their disposal studies such as a very detailed analysis of the locale. The property for the new power plant is among the most thoroughly surveyed properties in the country. Experts made over 170 geologic boreholes at the locale of the future construction site, also drilling 30 deep boreholes, up to 150 meters deep, with a total length of nearly 2 km, in order to monitor ground water. Another 66 survey boreholes were drilled by drilling riggs in the area. Over 1,300 containers had to be used for storing mineral samples (known as borehole core) alone.