- There are many steps in this process, but once an application comes in, it is a bigger step than many others, says Minister of Energy and Business Ebba Busch (KD), talking about a “great piece of news” just in time for Christmas.
The application concerns plans for three or five new smaller reactors on the Värö peninsula in Varberg municipality, where the Ringhals nuclear power plant is located. Both options should be able to produce about the same amount of electricity as Oskarshamn 3, around 1,500 megawatts.
- The next step will now be to initiate negotiations with the Government Offices about government support, says Desirée Comstedt, head of new nuclear power at Vattenfall and CEO of Videberg Kraft.
Negotiate hard
Ebba Busch says that there will be tough negotiations and that they will last a while, and how long is difficult to say. She emphasizes that Vattenfall's project company also has to choose between two suppliers of reactors.
Minister of Financial Markets Niklas Wykman (M) sees the application as very good news.
Wykman does not want to say anything definitive about the timetable for the Ministry of Finance's negotiations with Videberg Kraft, which concern loan terms and guaranteed prices for electricity production, among other things. They will be conducted based on the risk allocation model that the Riksdag decided on this in the spring.
- The work starts today. We have been preparing for this since August. But now we first have to read through the application.
Becomes more expensive
He does not want to go into how much it might cost to build a new one, other than that the government has assessed that it will be more expensive than the government investigator Mats Dillén's figure. Dillén assessed a few years ago that the cost of getting new nuclear power of 5,000 megawatts could involve government loans of 400 billion and a reserve of 200 billion.
Videberg Kraft AB is owned by the state-owned energy group Vattenfall, but nine major Swedish companies will own 20 percent through their joint investor Industrikraft.
Tested by the EU
After negotiations with the Government Offices, the case will be handed over to the European Commission for review against the rules on state aid.
Videberg Kraft plans to build five smaller BWRX-300 reactors from GE Vernova Hitachi or three reactors from Rolls-Royce SMR. The total output, regardless of the choice of reactor model, will be 1,500 megawatts.
"An intensive evaluation process is underway for the two remaining suppliers, and a decision on the final supplier is planned for 2026," Vattenfall writes in a press release.
