Ukraine wants to allow private companies to build small nuclear power plants: draft law

The Verkhovna Rada has drafted a bill that would allow private companies to build small modular reactors (SMRs). Its presentation took place on October 9 at the Parliamentary Committee on Energy, Housing and Utilities.

The document should eliminate key barriers to attracting private investment in nuclear energy, said Anatoliy Kostyukh, chairman of the relevant subcommittee.

"Investors will not come to Ukraine without cheap electricity. Creating competitive conditions in the energy sector is the biggest challenge for us," he said .

The draft law provides for several innovations, the main one being the abolition of the state monopoly on nuclear energy. Private companies will be able to independently choose operators for their nuclear facilities from among licensed players, while now the Cabinet of Ministers appoints the operator for all nuclear facilities without exception.

Investors will be able to own nuclear fuel for their reactors, but the state will retain a monopoly on radioactive waste management.

The MPs also propose to simplify construction procedures – there will be no need to submit three alternative sites, licensing of pre-project works will be canceled, and sites of thermal power plants will be able to be re-profiled for SMR.

The authors of the draft law argue that Ukraine may face a critical shortage of energy capacity due to the war and the obsolescence of thermal generation. Most TPPs and CHPs have reached the end of their useful life, and their renovation requires huge costs.

Small modular reactors are seen as an alternative. These are compact nuclear facilities with a capacity of up to 300 MW that can be quickly installed on the site of old power plants or near large factories. Manufacturers promise a construction period of three to five years.

"This technology is the future," said Tetiana Amosova, Director General of Atomproektengineering.

The cost of such construction ranges from $6000 to $12,000 per 1 kW, and the cost of re-equipping a thermal power plant is from $2000 to $3000 per 1 kW, according to a presentation made by Kostiukh.

• The previous head of Energoatom, Petro Kotin, said that Ukraine plans to build ten small modular reactors by 2050 .
• In March 2023, then-Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said that Ukraine is going to build up to 20 small modular reactors to replace the thermal power units destroyed during the war.