Argentina renews Atucha II licence, backing long-term nuclear role
Atucha II won a 10-year operating renewal to May 2036 after repairs, inspections and new tooling convinced Argentina’s regulator it can keep serving the grid.
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Atucha II has moved beyond being a reactor that merely kept the lights on. Argentina’s renewed licence, which now carries the 693 MWe unit through May 2036, reads like a vote of confidence that the plant belongs in the country’s long-term nuclear plans, not just as an ageing bridge from one project cycle to the next.
That shift matters because Atucha II has never had an ordinary life. Ordered in 1979 and started in 1981, construction was suspended in 1994 when the plant was 81% complete. Work later resumed, the unit reached effective completion in September 2011, went critical in June 2014, connected to the grid later that month and reached full power in February 2015. The new renewal adds another decade to a licensing record that began with an initial five-year operating licence on 26 May 2016, after testing, training and other required actions were completed, and then a two-year extension in 2021.
The latest decision followed a close look at technical documentation, inspections and regulatory review by Argentina’s Autoridad Regulatoria Nuclear, the independent body created in 1997 under Law 24,804 to oversee nuclear safety, radiation safety, physical protection, safeguards and non-proliferation. That regulator has now signed off on Atucha II after a shutdown that began in October 2022, when one of the reactor’s four internal supports was found to have detached. An IAEA technical record said a reduction in coolant flow from the AD-13 fuel channel had been observed on 1 August 2022, with the cause identified in October. The repair campaign did not stop at removal of the displaced object. Workers also checked three other similar elements, and the technical work led to the development of new remotely operated manipulators, welding tools and other equipment for the job.
For Nucleoeléctrica Argentina S.A., the renewal is more than paperwork. The company’s leadership framed it as recognition of operational capability and a reinforcement of Atucha II’s place in the national energy system, a system that still relies on three commercial reactors, Atucha I, Atucha II and Embalse, for about 5% of Argentina’s electricity. That broader nuclear picture still includes CAREM-25, the small modular reactor under construction, but the most immediate signal from Atucha II is simpler: Argentina is willing to spend the regulatory and engineering effort needed to keep a complex reactor running for the long haul.
Atucha II’s renewal also echoes across the rest of the Atucha complex in Lima, Zárate, on the Paraná de las Palmas River, about 100 km from Buenos Aires. The site has long symbolized domestic nuclear capability, and this licence suggests Argentina now wants that symbol to function as a working asset for the next decade, not a relic of the last one.
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