nucleareurope participates in NNWI webinar on SMRs

On 12 March 2024, nucleareurope Director General Yves Desbazeille participated in a New Nuclear Watch Institute (NNWI) webinar entitled ‘SMR Deployment in the Context of European Energy Transition’. This webinar provided nucleareurope with an opportunity to present the recently announced European Industrial Alliance on SMRs.

During his intervention, he provided an overview of the European SMR pre-Partnership which was set up in 2021 and laid the groundwork for the Alliance announced in late 2023. The goal of this Alliance (officially launched in February 2024) is to, for example:

• Help accelerate the deployment of SMRs.
• Ensure collaboration amongst regulators in the licensing of SMRs.
• Ensure that the supply chain is ready (in terms of skills, capacity and capability).
• Ensure the development of R&D.

He continued with an overview of how the Alliance will operate.  In a nutshell, it will provide a framework for coordinating activities, preparing analytical studies, sharing best practices and developing and conducting joint actions aimed at fostering the deployment of SMRs in Europe. To do this it will set up a series of Technical and Project-Based Working Groups. The topics to be tackled include project finance, skills and public engagement. 

In terms of next steps he drew participants attention to the Dissemination Event which will take place on 22 March 2024 in Brussels as well as the opportunity to apply for Alliance membership.