On Tuesday 30 April, the European Commission announced that it had authorised a Czech aid measure in favour of Elektrárna Dukovany II, a fully owned subsidiary of the ČEZ group, for the construction and operation of a new nuclear power plant in Dukovany, on the site of an existing plant notified in March 2022.
This nuclear power station is due to be commissioned in 2036 for trial operations. Commercial operations are scheduled to begin in 2038. The plant is due to be decommissioned in 2096.
The aid will be granted by the Czech Republic through direct price support, in the form of an electricity purchasing contract with a special-purpose State-owned company, for a period of 40 years. The support will also take the form of a subsidised loan from the State, designed to cover a large proportion of the construction costs, and a protection mechanism against unforeseen events.
The Czech authorities have modified the conditions of the public aid in order to address the concerns raised by the Commission following the in-depth investigation it opened on 30 June 2022.
The Czech Republic has introduced a remuneration formula similar to a two-way contract-for-difference, in order to limit excessive remuneration by means of an annual ex-post settlement.
It has also reduced the duration of its direct price support from 60 to 40 years and set the strike price on the basis of a discounted cash flow model to limit the total amount of aid to the project’s financing gap.
The Czech Republic will then implement a mechanism to recover any additional gains generated by the project.
Finally, the government has undertaken to ensure that at least 70% of electricity production is sold on the open power market. (Original version in French by Émilie Vanderhulst)