Overijssel study finds sites for small modular reactors across province

A first technical-spatial exploration has turned Overijssel’s SMR debate into a map of constraints, not a slogan. Tractebel’s study says many parts of the province could work for small modular reactors up to 100 MW, but only a handful of locations, mainly near the River IJssel, appear realistic for units in the 100 MW to 500 MW range.

The province said the work is only an initial planning step. No decisions have been made, no locations have been designated, and there has been no environmental impact assessment, safety study, or public participation with residents yet. Even so, the exercise matters because it shows where nuclear siting starts to collide with the real landscape: population density, natural hazards, cultural heritage, critical infrastructure, cooling water, and proximity to the electricity grid.

That is the core of the Overijssel case. Instead of treating small modular reactors as a generic future option, the province is now testing where a reactor could actually fit inside a densely used European region. Local reporting on the study points to theoretically possible areas near Marle and Welsum, as well as around Genemuiden and along the IJssel, but those are spatial possibilities, not chosen sites or permit applications. The broader message is that larger SMRs quickly narrow the field, while smaller units leave far more room to maneuver.

The province’s Energy Vision Overijssel 2050, built around a future-proof mix of electricity, hydrogen, heat and biogas, will be reviewed in 2028, when decisions on future electricity generation will be prepared. Overijssel said its next steps are research into social support and into how SMRs would fit into the electricity grid. Provincial executive member Gert Harm ten Bolscher said the studies are meant to show what is technically possible and to provide a basis for future discussion about the role of SMRs in the province’s energy supply.

This is not the first time the issue has been dissected in Overijssel. In autumn 2024, the province asked University of Twente CSTM to examine what SMRs could mean for the province and municipalities, including stakeholder perceptions, provincial policy room, licensing, timeline, grid integration and social acceptance. That early work framed SMRs as a technology still in its early stages worldwide, and the new siting study shows how much of the challenge is still about land use, infrastructure and acceptance long before a reactor is ever on the drawing board.

The timing also matters beyond the province. Tractebel is already part of the NEXUS-NL consortium, which won a EUR180 million Dutch government contract in January 2026 to support planning for up to two new gigawatt-scale nuclear plants. In Overijssel, though, the immediate lesson is more modest and more useful: if SMRs are ever built there, the decisive question will not be whether the idea exists, but where the grid, the water, the landscape and local acceptance finally line up.