The Dukovany Nuclear Power Station is a

nuclear power plant A nuclear power plant (NPP) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power stations, heat is used to generate steam that drives a steam turbine connected to a electric generator, generato ...

near

Dukovany Dukovany is a municipality and village in Třebíč District in the Vysočina Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 900 inhabitants. It is known for the Dukovany Nuclear Power Station. Geography Dukovany is located about southeast of Tř ...

in the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

. It was the second nuclear power plant in

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

(the

Bohunice Nuclear Power Plant The Jaslovské Bohunice Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) ( sk, Atómové elektrárne Jaslovské Bohunice, abbr. EBO) is a complex of nuclear reactors situated 2.5 km from the village of Jaslovské Bohunice in the Trnava District in western Slovakia. ...

in what is now Slovakia was constructed in 1958), and the first one in what is now the Czech Republic. It is situated from the town of

Třebíč Třebíč (; german: Trebitsch; yi, טרייביטש Treybitsh) is a town in the Vysočina Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 34,000 inhabitants. The beginnings of the town's history are connected with the establishment of a Benedictine ...

, near the

Dalešice Reservoir Dalešice is the name of several locations in the Czech Republic: * Dalešice (Jablonec nad Nisou District), a municipality and village in the Liberec Region * Dalešice (Třebíč District), a market town in the Vysočina Region ** Dalešice Da ...

, where the plant sources its water supply. In 1970

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

and the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

ratified a contract for construction of two nuclear power plants. Actual construction work began four years later. From 1985 to 1987, four power units with

pressurized water reactor A pressurized water reactor (PWR) is a type of light-water reactor, light-water nuclear reactor. PWRs constitute the large majority of the world's nuclear power plants (with notable exceptions being the UK, Japan and Canada). In a PWR, the primary ...

s were commissioned. All four are still in operation. Dukovany nuclear power plant supplies approximately 14 TWh of electric energy annually to the national power network. The plant is owned and operated by

ČEZ Group ČEZ Group ( cs, 'Skupina ČEZ' České Energetické Závody) is a conglomerate of 96 companies (including the parent company ČEZ, a.s.), 72 of them in the Czech Republic. Its core business is the generation, distribution, trade in, and sales o ...

. The power plant modernisation will successively be carried out to the end of its planned service life.

Plant characteristics

The plant has four reactors. As of 31 December 2011 ČEZ reported turbine generator output (gross capacity) as listed below. Net capacity is a baseline estimate only. In 2005, Unit 3 was upgraded to 456 MWe gross capacity, and the same upgrade was made to Unit 1 and Unit 4 in 2007. Unit 3 was further upgraded in 2009 to 500MWe. In total an extra 240 MWe of capacity has been or will be added before 2013 in a comprehensive program of improvements including steam plant replacement, addition of instrumentation and fuel changes. The reactors are fuelled by uranium dioxide UO₂. Fuel is placed in the reactor in 312 fuel assemblies. Each assembly consists of 126 fuel rods with a hermetically sealed fuel. Dukovany Nuclear Power Station has 8 cooling towers, each 125 metres tall. West of the facility there is a 136 metre tall guyed tower for monitoring air radioactivity. In 1994, a visitor information centre was opened at the site.

Power distribution

The power lines leaving Dukovany Nuclear Power Station are mainly installed on delta type pylons. They run to Slavetice substation situated at 49°6'15" N and 16°7'10" E. At this substation the powerline to Dürnrohr in

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

starts. Plant owner ČEZ plans to install a district heating circuit to supply heat to homes and businesses in

Brno Brno ( , ; german: Brünn ) is a city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava and Svratka rivers, Brno has about 380,000 inhabitants, making it the second-largest city in the Czech Republic ...

. A pipeline over 40 kilometres in length could be installed after regional officials have considered ČEZ's environmental impact statement for the project, submitted in July 2010.

Replacement

In 2019 the Czech government gave preliminary approval for at least one new nuclear power unit for about 2035 to replace the four units expected to shut down between 2035 and 2037. The financial model proposed is a state guarantee so finance can be obtained at government interest rates, but no subsidy on operating costs or above market-price electricity rates. In January 2021 Chinese companies were excluded from bidding for political and security reasons, following advice from the security services of EU and

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

member states. In April 2021, it was announced that Russia's

Rosatom Rosatom, ( rus, Росатом, p=rɐsˈatəm}) also known as Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation, the State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom or Rosatom State Corporation, is a Russian state corporation headquartered in Moscow that speciali ...

would be excluded as well, after it has been alleged that two Russian agents were perpetrators of the

2014 Vrbětice ammunition warehouses explosions In 2014, two explosions of ammunition depots occurred in Vrbětice of Vlachovice (Zlín District), Vlachovice) in the Zlín District of the Czech Republic. The first explosion occurred on 16 October, and the second on 3 December. Two people were ...

Popular culture

The Dukovany reactor complex appears in the

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

Tom Clancy's EndWar ''Tom Clancy's EndWar'' is a strategy video game available on Microsoft Windows and all seventh-generation platforms except the Wii, with the timing and flow of gameplay differing across platforms. The console and PC version is a real-time tac ...

'' as a potential battlefield.

References

External links