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While nuclear power is losing popularity in the U.S., Europe and other parts of the developed world, the appetite for new nuclear installations is rising in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Now Estonia’s Fermi Energia has just signed an enhanced cooperation agreement with Finnish energy company Fortum and the Belgian engineering group Tractebel for the purpose of researching Baltic small modular reactor (SMR) development with the intent of deploying SMRs in the Baltic states within the next decade.
Kalev Kallemets is the CEO and co-founder of Fermi Energia and the organizer of the New Energy Generation conference in Talinn this January. He said, “The highest value of the agreement is in starting mutual learning through practical working with current nuclear energy producers”.
Fermi Energia is engaged in discussion about similar cooperative agreements with two other European utility companies on an in-depth analysis of spent nuclear fuel management. They are also discussing SMR construction scheduling and planning. The studies are scheduled to be finished by the end of 2020. They will be made public in early 2021.
Fermi Energia is a privately owned SMR deployment company. They want to achieve the first deployment of an SMR in the European Union. They intend to build their first SMR in Estonia. They said that the SMR will provide carbon neutrality and a secure power supply in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Kallemets said that Estonia is also interested in developing a wider overseas market internationally. This would be accomplished by the establishment of SMR alliances with the U.K., Ireland, Finland and other countries.
Fermi Energia holds an annual conference in Tallinn. This year it presented the reports on the studies ‘Milestones of SMR deployment program’ and ‘Comparative analysis of licensed SMRs’. Kallemets wants an innovative nuclear power solution that is competitive with other investment opportunities. Four reactor options have been put on a short list for construction at a yet to be selected site.
Kallemets claims that the Baltic SMR will become a necessity to secure needed electrical capacity for the region. This new capacity is needed because Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will be disconnected from the Russian electrical grid by the end of 2025. After that date, the nuclear power provided by SMRs will be a critical element in obtaining reliable low carbon power for the Baltic countries. The first Baltic SMR will not be deployed until the 2030s.
Tractebel views the cooperation agreements as an opportunity to provide Estonia with expertise and capacity on the deployment of their first SMR. Tractebel said that it could serve as a project manager for the first SMR project following the conclusion of the feasibility studies.
Fortum is an energy generation company with the Finnish state holding a majority position. It operates two thousand eight hundred and nineteen megawatts of nuclear power generation capacity in Finland and Sweden. Peter Lundstrom is the vice president of nuclear services of Fortum. He says that Fortum has been involved in research and development activities involving SMR for the past few years.
Please read Part 2 next