Norway’s Norsk Kjernekraft has entered into a cooperation with Lyngdal municipality in southern Norway’s Agder county to investigate a possible future small NPP in the area. This came just a few days after the company signed a similar agreement with the nearby municipality of Farsund, also in Agder county.
Norsk Kjernekraft is seeking to build, own and operate small modular reactor (SMR) power plants in Norway in collaboration with power-intensive industry. The agreements involve initial investigation of all relevant locations for SMR power plants in the municipality.
The previous week, Norsk Kjernekraft had signed a cooperation agreement with Lund municipality in the southern county of Rogaland for the establishment of a nuclear plant in anticipation of increased power demand.
In June Norsk Kjernekraft had submitted a proposal to Norway’s Ministry of Energy for an assessment into the construction of a power plant based on multiple SMRs in the north-eastern county of Finnmark. In 2023, Finnmark’s Vardø municipality and Norsk Kjernekraft signed an agreement to prepare a report with proposals for a study programme after Vardø proposed nearby Svartnes as a possible NPP site.
Agreements were signed with a number of municipalities in 2023 to explore the feasibility of nuclear power. In June 2023 a letter of intent was signed with TVO Nuclear Services (part of Finnish utility Teollisuuden Voima Oyj) to jointly investigate the deployment of SMRs in Norway. This included the possible development of nuclear power in the municipalities of Aure (Møre og Romsdal county), Heim (Trøndelag county), Narvik (Nordland county) and Vardø.
November 2023 saw Norsk Kjernekraf submit a proposal to the Ministry of Oil & Energy to assess the construction of a SMR power plant in Aure and Heim. Then in April this year, the company launched an impact assessment of a plot of land in Øygarden municipality (Vestland county) to assess the possibility of establishing a nuclear plant based on five SMRs.
In addition, a new company, Halden Kjernekraft AS, has been set up by Norsk Kjernekraft, Østfold Energi and the municipality of Halden (Østfold county) to investigate the construction of a nuclear plant based on SMRs at Halden, where a research reactor once operated.
