What it would take for small modular reactors to work in the EU

The policy brief examines the potential of small modular reactors (SMRs) to provide firm, low-carbon energy and industrial heat within the EU. It identifies significant structural barriers to deployment, including fragmented national licensing processes, uncertain state aid timelines, and a lack of standardised financing models. The author argues that to avoid a series of isolated, high-cost projects, the EU must move toward serial production and regulatory alignment, focusing early efforts on a limited number of mature designs to build supply chain and workforce capacity.

• SMRs differ from traditional nuclear plants by using a modular approach where more construction occurs in factories, which is intended to lead to "serial production, more predictable and shortened build schedules, and cost learning over time", although these claims remain unproven.
• The EU faces a risk of fragmented development where isolated projects follow different "nationally prescribed licensing processes, financing models, and technical approaches", which would undermine the benefits of standardisation and keep costs high.
• Current structural barriers include long and uncertain state aid approval timelines, uneven access to EU and European Investment Bank support despite nuclear's inclusion in the EU taxonomy, and a licensing system that remains "largely national, fragmented, and overly rigid".
• To achieve repeatable deployment, the document suggests concentrating early efforts on a limited number of mature designs rather than the eight different technologies currently supported by the European Industrial Alliance for SMRs.
• Several EU Member States have active SMR pipelines: Romania has confirmed the Doicești site for NuScale Voygr with an expected deployment of 2029; Poland's OSGE plans two BWRX-300 units totalling 0.6 GW by 2035; and Estonia's Fermi Energia expects BWRX-300 deployment in the early 2030s.

APA

Qvist, M., & Janisz, E. (2025). What it would take for small modular reactors to work in the EU. Clean Air Task Force. https://www.catf.us/2025/12/what-it-would-take-for-small-modular-reactors-to-work-in-the-eu/

Chicago

Qvist, Malwina, and Emilia Janisz. What it would take for small modular reactors to work in the EU. Clean Air Task Force, 2025. https://www.catf.us/2025/12/what-it-would-take-for-small-modular-reactors-to-work-in-the-eu/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Qvist |first1=Malwina |last2=Janisz |first2=Emilia |title=What it would take for small modular reactors to work in the EU |publisher=Clean Air Task Force |date=18 December 2025 |url=https://www.catf.us/2025/12/what-it-would-take-for-small-modular-reactors-to-work-in-the-eu/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{qvist2025what, author = {Qvist, Malwina and Janisz, Emilia}, title = {{What it would take for small modular reactors to work in the EU}}, institution = {Clean Air Task Force}, year = {2025}, month = dec, url = {https://www.catf.us/2025/12/what-it-would-take-for-small-modular-reactors-to-work-in-the-eu/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }