Norwegian municipalities launch formal studies for small modular reactor plans

Øygarden has decided to launch formal investigation work using the Aure and Heim framework, a sign that Norway’s small modular reactor push is moving from municipal enthusiasm into the paperwork that can support a licence application. Norsk Kjernekraft says the Aure and Heim project is only the first of ten municipal projects it is pursuing, so this is starting to look like a repeatable siting process, not a one-off local pitch.

The Aure and Heim case shows what “investigation work” means in practice. Norsk Kjernekraft notified the Ministry of Energy on 2 November 2023 with a proposed environmental impact assessment programme for a nuclear power plant at Taftøy Industrial Park, on the border of Aure and Heim municipalities. The plant itself is planned in Heim, with supporting infrastructure in Aure. The project company, Trondheimsleia Kjernekraft AS, was later formed with Aure municipality, Heim municipality and the local energy company NEAS alongside Norsk Kjernekraft. Reporting on the concept says the site could eventually hold multiple SMRs, up to about 1,500 MW of capacity and around 12.5 TWh of electricity a year if fully built out.

The file then moved into Norway’s formal review machinery. In April 2025, the Ministry of Energy, the Ministry of Health and Care Services, the Ministry of Justice and Public Security, and the Ministry of Climate and Environment asked the Norwegian Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority, the Norwegian Directorate for Civil Protection and the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate to prepare a recommendation for the EIA programme. The Norwegian Environment Agency sent the assessment programme to neighbouring countries for consultation under the Espoo Convention in November 2025, and the programme was established in February 2026. The study programme is expected to take about two years, which puts this squarely in the pre-licensing phase, not anywhere near a construction decision.

That matters because Norway is treating these municipal reactor ideas as real nuclear facilities, not just energy branding. DSA says the country’s existing nuclear facilities are limited to the research reactors at Halden and Kjeller and the waste repository at Himdalen. The first phase of the Aure and Heim work will examine issues such as non-proliferation and security control, exactly the kind of technical and regulatory tests that decide whether a project can move from a local agreement to an actual licence filing. With Aure, Heim, Øygarden, Lund and Vardø all in the wider mix, the Norwegian SMR map is starting to look less like political signaling and more like a national pipeline for serious site selection.