Brussels, 22 March 2024
Good morning, everybody,
I’m delighted to see so many gathered today from different backgrounds – policymakers, the EU nuclear industry, start-ups, SMEs, education and training professionals.
Thanks to all of you for being here.
Today is another important step in a journey I started with you a few years ago. It began with the EU SMR pre-partnership in January 2022. It continued last November when we confirmed the launch of an Alliance at the European Nuclear Energy Forum.
Since then, we’ve taken all the formal steps for establishing the Alliance and I’m thrilled that there is such interest – more than a hundred players from different backgrounds have applied. This is very positive, and I am sure others will join in the coming weeks.
With all this in mind, today I want to kickstart our work with some brief thoughts about the Alliance: why it’s important in the current context, what the Alliance can achieve, how we can chart a way forward together.
First, Europe has set out a comprehensive legal pathway to achieve our 2030 targets. Now we’ve set our sights on 2040, with a recommendation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2040. This target means that the energy system will have to be to a large extent decarbonised. What it really means is that we must be using all the zero and low carbon energy solutions at our disposal – including nuclear technologies – to get there. Think about what the growing demand for clean electricity in the next years involves. We expect the share of electricity in our energy consumption to double, from 25% in 2030 to 50% in 2040.
This is huge – and governments and industry will need to have a diverse portfolio integrating all available renewable and other low-carbon energy sources. Small Modular Reactors should be part of that. They can help bring the price of electricity down. They can produce heat for industrial processes and urban districts. They can provide stable power for producing low carbon hydrogen and for powering clean district heating and cooling solutions. They can generate power for balancing the grid and supplying the electricity to data centres.
It’s also a question of competitiveness. SMRs are a solution well tailored to serve the needs of energy intensive industry in terms of clean energy for decarbonisation. And SMRs are in themselves a clean technology born out of an industry with a strong base in the EU.
The European nuclear industry is well established and has deep roots. But we need to build on this and speed things up to reduce the time to market and develop a whole supply chain for SMRs by 2030. Otherwise Europe will not maintain its full technological and industrial potential on nuclear. And we risk missing the new start in a sector where there is increasing global competition.
This brings me to what the Alliance can achieve. We want this Alliance to be projects-based and deliver benefits in very practical terms. It should be about exchanging information, best practices, and analytical studies. It must be about developing concrete projects.
And it needs to engage on all fronts: from nuclear safety to European supply chains, environmental sustainability, and innovation for new technologies. However, what it really boils down to is collaboration and coordination. We need collaboration for spreading risks and sharing costs among Member States, builders, vendors, project developers and all stakeholders involved in developing projects. Remember these are novel projects – they are risky and cost billions.
We also need collaboration for speeding up licensing. In this respect, regulators have an important role here as observers – I met with ENSREG on Wednesday and passed this message. We also need collaboration between different parts of the value chain, to reduce fragmentation between designs and identify best sources of funding.
The SMR Alliance represents a golden opportunity to foster this collaboration and accelerate deployment of the technology. And I can assure you that the Commission is invested in this partnership and will do its utmost to ensure it thrives now and in the next decade.
Let me end by thanking my services of DG ENER and our Deputy Director General, Massimo Garribba, as well as colleagues from DG GROW, the JRC and DG RTD for all your great work and for organising today’s event in such a short space of time.
And thanks to everyone here, for coming today in such big numbers. Today is about hearing from you on the challenges and opportunities of developing SMRs in Europe and how you see this European SMR initiative taking shape.
You are writing the SMR story in Europe. You will be the main protagonists of this Alliance. And the Commission will stand by you every step of the way. I look forward to working with you all.
Together we can build a competitive European SMR industry at the service of a more sustainable, more cost effective and more secure energy system.
Thank you.
Source – EU Commission