At the G7 Leaders Summit in Hiroshima, President Biden announced concrete steps to implement the vision of the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII) to mobilize $600 billion by 2027 in infrastructure investments around the world. The announcement included public-private support for the Romania small modular reactor (SMR) project from the United States, Japan, Republic of Korea, and United Arab Emirates of up to $275 million, which includes a Letter of Interest from U.S Export-Import Bank (EXIM) for up to $99 million from the EXIM Engineering Multiplier Program. In addition, EXIM and U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) issued Letters of Interest for potential support of up to $3 billion and $1 billion, respectively, for project deployment. Together with new pledges by Romania, these commitments demonstrate the power of multinational cooperation and public-private partnership on transformative infrastructure projects and will move forward Romania’s leading-edge SMR project, based on the U.S. firm NuScale Power LLC technology, towards deployment in 2029.
The Romania SMR project will replace a former coal plant at Doicesti with clean power and will capitalize on the experience gained on the first SMR project under development in the United States at the Carbon Free Power Project in Idaho. The Doicesti SMR project builds on over a quarter century of Romania’s safe and secure nuclear power plant operation experience.
Partners advancing the SMR project include Japan Bank for International Cooperation (Japan); DS Private Equity (Republic of Korea); EXIM Bank Romania, S.N. Nuclearelectrica S.A., Nova Power & Gas S.R.L. (Romania); Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC, United Arab Emirates); DFC and EXIM (United States). Commitments will support procurement of long lead materials, finalization of front-end engineering and design (FEED) work, provision of project management expertise, site characterization and regulatory analyses, and precise schedule and budget estimates for project execution. ENEC’s involvement in the Romanian SMR project, through in-kind contribution of nuclear experts, represents the first nuclear energy-focused activity undertaken within the U.S.-UAE Partnership for Accelerating Clean Energy (PACE) platform. PACE was launched in November 2022 to catalyze $100 billion in financing, investment, and other support to deploy 100 new gigawatts of clean energy capacity by 2035, delivering further momentum and impact on the road to the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28), which the UAE will host in November 2023.
This multilateral endeavor to deploy safe and secure civil nuclear technology is a testament to the essential role nuclear energy plays in the global clean energy transition and meeting our collective goal to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The United States is committed to supporting the use of innovative clean energy technologies to power global decarbonization efforts and provide energy security and independence to partners around the world.
Source: U.S. Department of State
