(adds background, details about Dukovany )
PRAGUE July 14 (Reuters) - Czech power group CEZ <>
unveiled a preliminary plan on Monday to build two new units at
its Temelin nuclear power plant in a move that could be the
largest investment in the central European state.
CEZ, ex-communist central Europe's largest company with a
market capitalisation of $54 million, said construction should
start in 2013 and the first bloc should be completed by 2020.
Czech media have estimated the project could to cost up to
130 billion crowns ($8.16 billion) but a CEZ spokeswoman
declined to comment on the price.
The units could reach a combined capacity of up to 3,400
megawatts, adding to the company's current 12,302 megawatts, CEZ
said in a presentation on its Web site on Monday.
The company has asked the Environment Ministry for an
environmental assessment for the new units, which it said could
take two and a half years.
The assessment must precede any decision to build the plant,
and the centre-right government, in which the Green Party is a
junior member, has pledged not to approve construction of new
nuclear power stations before its term ends in 2010.
The Czech Republic is Europe's third largest electricity
exporter but shrinking coal reserves, rising demand and an
ageing pool of power plants are expected to swing the balance to
where it will barely meet domestic demand in about 2015.
CEZ operates two 1,000 megawatt units at the Temelin plant
in the southern Czech Republic, near its border with fiercely
anti-nuclear neighbour Austria, and has capacity to add another
two units of the same size at the site.
It also runs four older units in Dukovany in the southeast,
for which it also plans to ask for an environmental impact study
to build a new reactor there, CEZ spokeswoman Eva Novakova said.
But she declined to specify when. "It may not take long,"
Novakova said.
There has been a rising tendency in Europe to push for
nuclear power as soaring commodity prices make energy from coal,
gas and fuel-oil fired plants more expensive to run.
CEZ has long said it is also interested in investing in
nuclear projects in other central and eastern European countries
including Romania's Cernavoda, Slovakia's Jaslovske Bohunice,
and Bulgaria's Belene.
The vast majority of Czech political parties support
building new nuclear plants, but the small Green Party, a
coalition ally of the ruling right-wing Civic Democrats, insists
the cabinet not push ahead.
Shares in CEZ closed up 0.3 percent at 1,343 crowns,
outperforming the main PX index <> which shed 0.26 percent.
(Reporting by Jana Mlcochova)
