Westinghouse and Metrostav Have Become Partners for the Temelin Bid

January 31, 2011

Yves Brachet (Westinghouse, left), Ambasador Eisen (center) and Pavel Pilát (Metrostav)

On January 30, U.S.-based Westinghouse Electric Company and Czech construction firm Metrostav announced the signing of an exclusive Memorandum of Understanding linking them together for the Temelin bid.

U.S. Ambassador Norman Eisen said  that the announcement of an exclusive partnership between Westinghouse and Metrostav  represents further evidence of Westinghouse’s commitment to “buy where they build.”

“This agreement means significant Czech content in this bid, and this bid will be extremely competitive one from Westinghouse,” stated the Ambassador at the press conference at the National Technical Museum.

Westinghouse’s President for the Europe, Middle East & Africa region, Yves Brachet, stressed the fact that Metrostav will be much more than just a simple sub-contracter. “Partnership means risk-sharing and profit-sharing. This is according to the delivery of each company in their part of the construction project,” Brachet said. “We expect Metrostav to have responsibility for the construction of Temelín, with construction typically accounting for 30 percent of all of the work.”

Taken together with other agreements already in place with other Czech companies, Westinghouse is building ever stronger partnerships that will be the basis for a long-term commitment here in the Czech Republic.

Westinghouse has already signed an important Memorandum of Understanding with Czech company Vítkovice a.s. from which intends to procure important components if their AP1000 reactor is selected for the completion of the Temelín Nuclear Power Plant, and an exclusive contract with Czech cables firm I&C Energo.

Czech electricity company ČEZ is due to make decision on the winning bidder by the end of 2013. Along with Westinghouse, French company Areva and a consortium of Russian Atomstrojexport and Czech engineering group Škoda JS are competing in the tender.

Westinghouse Electric Company, a company of Toshiba Corporation, is the world's pioneering nuclear energy company and is a leading supplier of nuclear power plant products and technologies to utilities throughout the world.  Today, Westinghouse technology is the basis for approximately one-half of the world's operating nuclear plants.