PRESS RELEASE, Ostrava 20 October 2025
VŠB – Technical University of Ostrava will participate even more intensively in the direction of the Czech energy sector. It is strengthening its role in energy research by linking two Czech national centres focused on modern energy directions. The principal investigators from the Technical University of Ostrava and the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen have agreed on a joint strategy. VŠB-TUO is thus becoming a leading institution in sustainable energy research and extending its scope from renewable to nuclear energy.
The main representatives of the National Centre for Energy (NCE II) under VŠB-TUO and the Centre for Advanced Nuclear Technologies (CANUT II) under the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen have agreed to link up in order to strengthen the further development of modern, low-carbon and sustainable energy in the Czech Republic. This cooperation will create a comprehensive research ecosystem linking top experts from universities, research institutes and industrial partners who will jointly contribute to achieving energy self-sufficiency and safe decarbonisation of the Czech Republic.
“The merger of these two centres through a joint strategy is a natural first step towards the creation of a unified national platform that will be able to comprehensively address the issues of reliability, safety and sustainability of the Czech energy sector – not only from a technological, but also from a legislative and economic perspective. This step creates a space for a coordinated approach to research and innovation, which will allow us to better respond to the needs of industry, the state and society,” said Stanislav Mišák, Director of the Centre for Energy and Environmental Technologies (CEET) at VŠB-TUO and principal investigator of the NCE II project.
The CANUT II project, whose principal investigator is Zdeněk Peroutka from the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, has long focused on the development of modern nuclear technologies, research on small modular reactors (SMRs) and safety aspects of nuclear energy. The integration of his research activities under NCE II brings significant synergies especially in the areas of modelling, diagnostics and control of power systems.
“The NCE II and CANUT II consortia include all major players in the energy sector, whether operators, industrial companies, universities, research organisations or institutes of the Academy of Sciences, which are intertwined in both centres. It is also evident that the sub-projects developed within NCE II very often have an overlap with the nuclear power industry and that the outputs of CANUT II are equally applicable in the conventional and renewable energy sector, which can be seen, for example, in topics focused on operational flexibility or energy storage,” said Daneš Burket, Director of the Research and Development Strategy Section at the Řež Research Centre.
The next logical step will be to establish new themes for sustainable energy on the basis of cooperation between the two centres of competence, which will contribute to the energy self-sufficiency, security and technological sovereignty of the Czech Republic.
The National Centre for Energy II is a project co-financed by the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic within the framework of the National Centres of Competence Programme and from the funds of the National Renewal Plan. The project involves 34 partners from academia and industry. It addresses, for example, new approaches to hydrogen production and purification or the use of thermal plasma to optimise energy-intensive processes. Experts are also working on new concepts for increasing the reliability and resilience of transmission systems or energy storage. Among other things, a spin-off is being set up to simulate energy balances.
Media contact: Ing. Jana Dronská, MBA, M: 606728882, e-mail: jana.dronska@vsb.cz
www.vsb. cz
