France's Areva SA (ARVCY), Russia's Atomstroyexport ASE and U.S.-based Westinghouse Electric Company LLC Friday confirmed they are participating in a tender to build five nuclear reactors in Europe for Czech power company CEZ AS (BAACEZ.PR).
Areva submitted a tender qualification document for CEZ's nuclear expansion project, the company's press office said Friday.
The Russian state-owned nuclear technology holding Atomstroyexport confirmed its participation, as did Westinghouse, the Pennsylvania-based nuclear firm owned by Japan's Toshiba Corp. (6502.TO).
The deadline for this first non-binding expression of interest in tender, worth almost $30 billion, was Friday at 1100 GMT.
The first of the new reactor units should be on line at the Czech Temelin power plant in 2020. It will complement CEZ's existing clean-burning nuclear plants and replace dirty coal-fired power units which currently account for more than half of the company's power generation base.
Other reactor units will be built at the Dukovany nuclear power plant in the Czech Republic, one most likely in Slovakia and possibly a unit in Turkey, CEZ earlier said.
CEZ is phasing out the coal generators because they will be more expensive to run in future as the cost of greenhouse gas emissions is expected to rise due to the European Union's emissions cap-and-trade system.
Other unconfirmed bidders are thought to include Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. (7011.TO) and Seoul-based Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co Ltd, though neither company immediately responded to inquiries from Dow Jones Newswires.