Holtec's team for Czech Republic grows
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The agreement is the latest in a series related to Holtec's goals to sell its small reactor design, the SMR-160, a pressurised water reactor designed to supply heat as well as up to 160 MWe of electricity.
Last month Holtec signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with ČEZ, the Czech Republic's leading power company, to continue evaluating the addition of SMR-160s at the Temelin nuclear power plant. This work is supported by the research centre ÚJV Řež, which ČEZ partly owns.
Korea-based Hyundai Engineering and Construction was brought into Holtec's team by an MoU signed in November last year. Hyundai agreed to support completion of the SMR-160 detailed design and its delivery worldwide.
Now, Holtec has said that Škoda Praha has signed an MoU with Hyundai to work out a suitable division of responsibilities for procurement, construction and commissioning of potential SMR-160s in the Czech Republic. They will also "develop a cost estimate for deployment of the SMR-160 standard design in the Czech Republic," said Holtec. The units could be built in batches of four to eight.
Škoda Praha is a general turnkey power plant supplier and part of the same ÚJV Group as Škoda JS, which is the nuclear engineering specialist.
Holtec’s Senior Vice President of International Projects, Rick Springman, said the agreement "is the starting point for planning project execution of SMR-160 within the Czech and broader European context."
The company's press release noted that depending on the "size of commitment for SMR-160 orders" and "competing offers from other European countries" a factory could be established in the Czech Republic to mass produce SMR-160s. This would be a "replica" of the factory Holtec plans for the USA, it said.
SMR-160 also has prospects for industrial heat supply and district heat, according to Holtec, which is developing products in this area. Holtec added that it is in discussions with the Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade about this.
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