Sweden to take control of first new nuclear power project
Sweden is stepping in as majority owner of Videberg Kraft, putting state capital behind three Rolls-Royce SMRs and testing whether public control can unlock financing.
Sweden will take a 60% stake in Videberg Kraft AB, giving the state control of the company planning three Rolls-Royce small modular reactors on the Värö Peninsula near Ringhals. The move pulls the project out of a mostly private-industrial model and puts Stockholm in the lead on the country’s first new nuclear plant in more than four decades.
The government’s spring amending budget gives the state authority to buy shares in 2026 and 2027, with up to SEK1.8 billion set aside for the acquisition and as much as SEK34.3 billion available in capital injections during construction, if the other owners contribute their share. Vattenfall, which currently owns 80% of Videberg Kraft, would drop to 20%, while Industrikraft would remain a 20% shareholder under the new structure. Formal transfer of the shares is planned for the second half of 2027.
That ownership shift is the point of the deal. Sweden’s nuclear-financing framework is designed to support investments of up to about 5,000 MW, roughly the output of four large reactors, and the government wants a structure that can be financed without leaving taxpayers exposed to open-ended risk. Its own materials frame new nuclear as a long-term societal project that requires the state to lower risk for early movers while keeping waste producers responsible for their share of radioactive-waste and spent-fuel costs.
Videberg Kraft has already moved further than most European SMR proposals. It filed Sweden’s first application for state aid for new nuclear power in December 2025, and in June it selected Rolls-Royce SMR after a process that screened more than 70 alternatives over more than three years. Vattenfall said the supplier choice clears the way for detailed planning on three modular reactors, with first operation still aimed at the mid-2030s.
The project also sits inside a tighter political and regulatory maze than a normal industrial build. Varberg municipality has veto power over the site, and any aid package will still face a compatibility review under European Union state-aid rules through the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition. Even so, the line-up around the project is widening: as of June 2026, other Swedish state-aid applicants include Blykalla, Studsvik and Nordic Baseload Power, while Industrikraft says its participating companies include ABB, Alfa Laval, Boliden, Hitachi Energy, Höganäs AB, Saab, Stora Enso, SSAB and the Volvo Group.
For a project that has spent years as a proposal, the change is blunt and practical: Sweden is no longer just endorsing the Ringhals plan, it is underwriting it, and that is what may decide whether these three SMRs become a project rather than another European nuclear idea that never leaves the page.
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