Orano signs a contract with the Czech electric utility ČEZ for the supply of uranium enrichment services pg. 2

* The Hodonín power plant stabilises year-round supply of electricity and heat
* This will be enabled by a new water-cooling method, using air in ventilator towers
* The currently employed flow-through cooling, using water from the river, had limited capacity, particularly in summer
* Biomass burning, which commenced in 2009, is now the main fuel
* The cross-border supply of heat to Holíč, Slovakia is unique European terms

After several months of testing, the brand-new cooling system at the Hodonín power plant has been transitioned into a one-year trial run. The advanced Israeli cooling-tower technology will cut cooling-water consumption by 97%, from 59 million cubic metres to less than 2 million per year. The ventilator cooling tower is broken up into 4 cells, each up to only 12.5 metres high, so that the facility does not disrupt the skyline. The Hodonín power plant is a low-emission ČEZ source that started to burn biomass in 2009.

Orano has signed a contract with the Czech electric utility ČEZ, a.s., for the supply of uranium enrichment services. The enriched uranium, once transformed into fuel, will be used in its Dukovany nuclear power plant. The signing took place today during a trip by the President of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron, to the Czech Republic to strengthen bilateral cooperation, particularly in civil nuclear power.

CEZ Group has improved its ESG rating with CDP, one of the world's leading organisations focused on assessing public administration and companies from a sustainability perspective. In the key area of tackling climate change, CEZ has scored a B, an improvement of two ranks since 2021. CDP rates companies in terms of climate change, water security and preventing deforestation for around 750 investors from around the world.

CEZ Group has joined the approximately 1,000 companies around the world that will assess the impact of their business on the environment, landscape, ecosystems, and biodiversity in accordance with the recommendations and assessment criteria of the Task Force on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD). At the end of last year, the TNFD released a methodology for companies to financially assess not only their impacts on nature, but also the financial benefits of functional ecosystems for their business. Some investors and financial institutions already require companies to quantify their impacts, and such reporting is also included in the European legislation on sustainability (the CSRD). A list of all the initial supporters who have pledged reporting in accordance with the TNFD, as CEZ has done, was published at the current meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos.