STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -Swedish state utility Vattenfall said on Thursday it has selected Britain’s Rolls-Royce SMR and U.S. group GE Vernova as candidates for the planned construction of a series of small modular reactors (SMR).
Sweden’s parliament in May passed legislation to finance a new generation of nuclear reactors, which the government says are key to energy security and achieving net zero emissions by 2045.
Vattenfall plans to order either five BWRX-300 reactors from GE Vernova or three Rolls-Royce SMRs, which will provide a total output of around 1,500 MW, in what will become Sweden’s first new nuclear reactors in four decades, it said in a statement.
After looking like a doomed technology after nuclear accidents at Chernobyl in Ukraine and Fukushima in Japan, nuclear power has seen a revival in recent years as countries scramble to phase out fossil fuels and address a warming climate.
Sweden wants to build at least 2,500 MW of nuclear capacity by 2035. In total, the government wants the equivalent of around 10 full size reactors by 2045.
“Now it’s happening – with new nuclear power Sweden will get a more stable, competitive and climate friendly energy generation,” Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said on X.
“It’s good both for Swedish families and the industrial economy.”
Electricity demand in Sweden is expected to double to around 300 terrawatt hours over the next two decades, the government says, due in part to key new industries like green steel, bio-fuels and large-scale hydrogen production. Without new energy capacity such as nuclear power, those industries will go elsewhere, the government says.
However, industry has proven reluctant to invest and the government will now shoulder the lion’s share of nuclear financing.
(Reporting by Anna Ringstrom, Simon Johnson and Niklas Pollard, editing by Terje Solsvik and Susan Fenton)
