Dukovany One Year On: Czechia's $18.6 Billion KHNP Nuclear Build Stays on Schedule While Western Europe Slips

In European nuclear construction, 'on schedule' is a phrase with a short life expectancy. Olkiluoto 3 connected to the grid roughly 14 years late. Flamanville 3 took 17 years from first concrete to grid connection. Hinkley Point C's estimated bill has climbed towards £46 billion. Against that record, the first annual progress report on Czechia's Dukovany expansion reads almost like a provocation: one year after the CZK 407 billion (US$18.6 billion) contract with Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) was signed, the Czech Ministry of Trade and Industry reports that the two-unit project 'is proceeding according to the set schedule' (Czech Ministry of Trade and Industry progress report, via World Nuclear News, 8 July 2026).

The report lands one year after a signing that was itself delayed by an eleventh-hour court injunction. It describes a project that is deliberately front-loading the unglamorous work: the current first phase will run roughly four years and, in the ministry's words, is 'primarily focused on developing project and licensing documentation, obtaining all necessary permits and ensuring the necessary infrastructure for the start of construction'. First concrete is expected in 2029.

Thirteen kilometres of drilling before a single pour

The headline achievement of year one is geological. Site crews drilled hundreds of exploratory wells totalling more than 13 kilometres, sent the samples through laboratory testing, and condensed the results into a final report of more than 6,000 pages that will also feed a full 3D model of the site. For a sector whose worst overruns have often started with ground conditions and late design changes, this is exactly the sequence lenders and EPC risk managers want to see.

Petr Závodský, director general of project company Elektrárna Dukovany II, put it plainly: 'The preparatory phase is always a bit thankless, because it is not much visible from the outside, but it is absolutely crucial for the subsequent construction to proceed smoothly.'

The Czech supply chain is already winning work

Three domestic awards stand out. ČEZ Energetické projekty carried out the geological survey campaign. Doosan Škoda Power, the Plzeň-based turbine maker, won the contract for turbogenerators, the most prestigious localisation prize on the project so far. Energoprojekt Praha will provide consulting services, including licensing and project documentation support.

The pipeline behind those awards is being institutionalised. A registration system for prospective Czech and South Korean suppliers is live, and four training days on the APR1000 technology have already been held. In the second half of 2026 the project company intends to tender the supply of cooling towers, while an archaeological survey, a six-floor administrative building and preparatory works, including road bypasses and accommodation for a peak workforce of around 10,000, move ahead in parallel.

An ownership structure built for bankability

The project owner, Elektrárna Dukovany II, is 80% held by the Czech state and 20% by ČEZ, which operates the country's existing reactors. That structure does two jobs at once. It shields ČEZ's balance sheet and credit metrics from an US$18.6 billion construction programme, and it gives every supplier and future lender a sovereign-grade counterparty. The legal overhangs that shadowed the award have also cleared: EDF's challenge failed in June 2025, and KHNP has said the European Commission dropped its foreign-subsidies review of the deal.

KHNP submitted the conceptual design for the plant in April 2026, covering all changes against the standard APR1000 needed for Czech legislation, site conditions and the investor's contractual requirements. The design is now open for comments before the next, more detailed documentation stage. The schedule thesis rests on keeping those changes minimal: KHNP's reference record, including four APR1400 units delivered at Barakah in the UAE, is built on replication discipline rather than bespoke engineering.

For operators, contractors and investors, the near-term signals to watch are concrete: the cooling-tower tender in H2 2026, the pace of licensing documentation through 2027, and how the region absorbs the logistics of a 10,000-worker site. Civil packages, worker accommodation, transport upgrades and grid works will be procured years before the nuclear island, and they are financeable today against a state-backed counterparty. If Dukovany holds its schedule through the permitting years, it becomes the reference case that Poland's AP1000 programme, Paks II and every future CEE nuclear tender will be measured against, and the strongest argument yet that Europe can buy nuclear delivery discipline off the shelf.