Fortum’s There was almost nothing new about nuclear power patterns in the company’s interim report earlier this week. The company was content to quote its report from last March: With the current electricity market outlook, building a new nuclear power plant does not make economic sense if profitability is completely dependent on electricity market prices.
At the price levels of freezing days, some people might wonder if it’s worth it? However, the few peak price weeks of the year are not enough to guarantee the profitability of nuclear power.
Fortum said that it will continue to develop new nuclear power as a long-term option, so that it would be ready to respond to the predicted increase in customer demand.
However, the company made a gamble a few weeks ago by buying a small slice of a domestic developer of small remote nuclear power plants from Steady Energy.
In a report published last year, Fortum listed the conditions for the realization of a large new nuclear power project.
In short, in addition to the price of electricity, long-term commitments with electricity purchasers, such as PPA agreements, are a prerequisite.
The cost of capital is also a key factor in production costs. Fortum requires cost-effective financing, which in practice requires the state’s participation with, for example, loans and guarantees. In this way, the price of the loan money can be lowered.
New nuclear power projects are such large investments that Fortum cannot implement them alone. It would need strong partners and co-investors to share the investment burden and form a competent group of owners.
But if artificial intelligence needs more electricity behind it, maybe something really new will be heard about Fortum’s possible nuclear power project in the next decade.