The US official export credit agency, the Export-Import Bank (Exim Bank), has approved a financial commitment of up to $99m (€89m) to support the development of a small modular reactor project at the Doicesti coal plant site, reports in Romania said.
The funds are designated for RoPower, a joint venture between state-owned company Nuclearelectrica, which operates the Cernavodă nuclear power station, and the private Romanian energy company Nova Power & Gas.
According to Profit.ro, citing RoPower as its source, the Exim money will go towards site development, regulatory approvals and detailed engineering work.
The commitment is part of an initial $275m funding package announced last year which includes significant contributions from other international institutions like the US International Development Finance Corporation and private partners, according to Profit.ro. The package is said to include funding from countries including Japan, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates.
RoPower and US-based SMR developer NuScale are conducting a front-end engineering and design (Feed) study to analyse the preferred site, a former coal plant in Doicesti, north of Bucharest in southern Romania.
In July, US RoPower and engineering and construction company Fluor Corporation signed an agreement for the second phase Feed study for an SMR plant using NuScale’s Voygr SMR technology.
Fluor, the majority investor in NuScale, has invested more than $600m in NuScale to help bring the company’s Voygr technology to market.
The Romania SMR project is to build a 462 MW capacity plant using NuScale technology with six modules, each with an installed capacity of 77 MW. The facility would operate for 60 years.
In November 2023 RoPower confirmed its commitment to proposed projects using SMR technology in the wake of an announcement by NuScale of the cancellation of its pilot Voygr demonstrator plant in the US.
Earlier this summer, a South Korean investment fund obtained preliminary national security approval from the Romanian government to acquire one-third of the capital in RoPower Nuclear SA, reports said.
