Sweden's government said on June 25 that it was taking a direct majority stake in a company planning to build three small modular reactors (SMRs), the country's first new nuclear reactors in half a century.
Sweden last year chose to opt for SMR technology when it decided to build new nuclear reactors for the first time in 50 years.
Energy Minister Ebba Busch told a press conference that just like in the 1970s — when most of Sweden's reactors were built — the world was now facing an energy crisis.
"There are major geopolitical uncertainties and substantial electrification needs," Busch said, noting that energy had several times become "weaponised".
"We cannot, in that situation, be dependent on the weather or on foreign powers," she added, referring to renewable energy production such as wind power.
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.
Swedish state-owned utility Vattenfall set up a company called Videberg Kraft to build new reactors.
A consortium of industrial companies, called Industrikraft, later invested 400 million kronor ($41 million) for a 20-percent stake.
The government announced Thursday that it would be taking a 60-percent direct stake in Videberg Kraft, with Vattenfall and Industrikraft retaining a 20-percent stake each.
It said in a statement that parliament had already approved its plan to acquire a 60-percent stake for no more than 1.8 billion kronor.
Sweden voted in a nonbinding 1980 referendum to phase out nuclear power, and has since then shut down six of its 12 ageing reactors.
Sweden's six active reactors currently generate about 30 percent of its electricity needs.
Earlier in June, Vattenfall announced that it had selected Britain's Rolls-Royce to build the three reactors planned at the Ringhals nuclear power plant in southwest Sweden — home to two of the country's reactors still in operation.
The SMRs are expected to provide an energy output equivalent to two large reactors — around 1,500 MW.
