Small and Advanced Modular Reactors will become a strategic asset in ensuring Europe’s clean and competitive industrial leadership
Small and Advanced Modular Reactors (SMRs) are making rapid progress and have the potential to become a key part of integrated energy systems with their ability to deliver reliable, carbon-neutral electricity and heat. These innovative nuclear reactors are smaller, more flexible, and designed with enhanced safety features.
As the Commission presents its SMR strategy on Tuesday, Renew Europe presents an eight-point priority list of essential measures to take at European level, to ensure that Europe takes the lead in the race for the development of SMRs through innovative European designs. Among them are the need of a predictable, modern and harmonised regulatory framework through an SMR Act, the development of an optional European SMR pre-licensing certification, an attractive financing environment that encourages innovation, investment, and industrial leadership as well as the crucial support of a European supply chain, technologies and strategic autonomy. We do believe that with an ambitious strategy, Small and Advanced Modular Reactors can become a key pillar of Europe’s carbon-neutral energy system.
Sophie Wilmès, (Mouvement Réformateur/Belgium), has drafted Renew Europe’s freshly adopted policy paper on SMRs. She says:
"SMRs will revolutionise nuclear energy production by shifting from big ad hoc projects to smaller in series produced modules, lowering the investment risks and delivering economies of scale. They have the capacity to deliver the clean and affordable energy massively needed for our twin transitions and for the competitiveness of our industry. Europe cannot afford to miss out on the opportunities SMRs offer to European industries and must develop its own European SMR industrial value chain."
Sophie WilmèsRenew Europe MEP, Belgium, Mouvement Réformateur