The Swedish government last year chose to opt for so-called small modular reactor technology as the country has decided to build new nuclear reactors for the first time in 50 years.

For the three reactors planned for Ringhals, which are expected to provide an energy output equivalent to two large reactors-around 1,500 MW, Vattenfall chose Rolls-Royce SMR over US competitor GE Vernova.

Vattenfall highlighted costs and the development of similar programs in the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic to justify its choice.

"This is the best offer we have received in terms of the total outcome of cost estimates, fixed cost, variable cost, risk sharing, and we've also taken into consideration the liabilities that we see that the supplier takes on in the contract," Vattenfall CEO Anna Borg told a press conference.

Borg added that it was too early to put a figure on the cost of these reactors.

"We will be part of a larger European program since these reactors also will be built in UK and in the Czech Republic. That means that we can share development costs but also learnings with peers that are geographically close to us," she said.

A first reactor could be built around 2035, Borg said, stressing that this would depend on the timetable for regulatory approvals.

SMRs are advanced reactors that have a power capacity of 300 to 500 megawatts of electricity per unit.

They are relatively simple to build, which makes them more affordable than large power reactors.

Sweden voted in a nonbinding 1980 referendum to phase out nuclear power, and since then has shut down six of its 12 ageing reactors.

Sweden's six active reactors currently generate about 30 percent of its electricity needs.

In 2023, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson's right-wing coalition government, propped up by the far-right Sweden Democrats, vowed to massively ramp up nuclear energy in Sweden.

ef/jll/cw

ROLLS-ROYCE HOLDINGS