Kärnenergi Redux: Sweden Re-Embraces Nuclear Through GE-Hitachi SMR Deal
For several decades in the wake of Three Mile Island’s partial meltdown, Sweden vowed to dismantle its nuclear energy or "kärnenergi" program.
Finding a solution at the crossroads of resilience, security, sustainability and rising demand sometimes pivots a nation another way. Today, the Scandinavian nation is embracing carbon-free nuclear for electricity and plans to add 1.2 GW of small modular reactor (SMR) capacity in the coming decade.
Swedish nuclear technology firm Studsvik signed up with reactor manufacturer GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy and engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor Samsung C&T to advance a national SMR program in the nation. Studsvik’s Refirm next-gen reactor business will collaborate with GE Vernova Hitachi on deployment of the latter’s BWRX-300 SMRs at sites in Nyköping and Valdemarsvik.
The original agreement calls for a four-unit BWRX-300 project totaling close to 1.2 GW of next-gen nuclear capacity. The agreements can be extended.
Swedish Decarbonizing Utility Generation Through SMRs
Sweden currently generates close to 30% of its national electricity through more than 7 GW of conventional nuclear power plant capacity. This project, if and when completed in the 2030s, would provide the country’s first SMR units.
“Sweden’s electricity supply is a long-term play: existing nuclear capacity is aging, and demand for baseload power is growing,” Studsvik CEO Karl Thedéen said in a statement. “To meet that, we have looked for long-term partners and for the conditions that let projects like this succeed. In GE Vernova Hitachi and Samsung C&T we have found them. We intend to build the first project either on an existing nuclear site or on a greenfield. One plant is a project. Four is the start of an industry.”
GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear has been working on testing and development of the BWRX-300 boiling-water reactor technology at Ontario Generation’s Darlington New Nuclear Project in Canada. Neither the U.S., Canada or any developed western nation has built an SMR or put it into commercial operation, but several countries are working on the technology to create quicker and more adaptable use cases for project development.
The collaboration with Studsvik, GE Vernova Hitachi and Samsung C&T “is about helping Sweden turn its energy ambitions into reality in a timeframe that matters for its communities and industries. The country has a strong foundation of nuclear expertise and operational excellence,” GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy CEO Jason Cooper said. “Together with a growing global pipeline of projects across North America and Europe, this experience gives Sweden access to a technology that is moving from first-of-a-kind deployment toward fleet-scale execution.”
Developing SMR technology to create baseload, sustainable power for future data center and AI factory load is such as a priority in the U.S. that President Trump’s Department of Energy created a pilot program encouraging startups to fast-track testing and development of advanced and SMR reactors to reach small-stage criticality by July 4. Four of those startups beat that deadline.
Sweden and the U.S. are only a few of the nations which began moving away from new nuclear energy projects after the Three Mile Island partial meltdown in Pennsylvania in 1979 and the Soviet Union’s cataclysmic Chernobyl disaster in 1986.
In 1980, Sweden’s National Parliament initiated a referendum to phase out nuclear power by 2010. Eventually, national leaders, making a shift from seeking 100% renewable to 100% fossil-free goals, voted to repeal the nuclear phase-out policy.
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About the Author
Rod Walton, EnergyTech Managing EditorRod Walton, EnergyTech Managing Editor
Managing Editor
For EnergyTech editorial inquiries, please contact Managing Editor Rod Walton at [email protected].
Rod Walton has spent 17 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist. He formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.
Walton earned his Bachelors degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma. His career stops include the Moore American, Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise, Wagoner Tribune and Tulsa World.
EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids. The C&I sectors together account for close to 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.
He was named Managing Editor for Microgrid Knowledge and EnergyTech starting July 1, 2023
Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.