en.Wedoany.com Reported - Polish nuclear power developer Orlen Synthos Green Energy (OSGE) has submitted an application to the Polish Ministry of Energy requesting the establishment of a national support program for deploying a fleet of 14 GE-Hitachi VNova (GVH) BWRX-300 small modular reactors (SMRs) across three target sites.
Through applying for Contracts for Difference (CfD), OSGE seeks to lock in a fixed electricity "strike price" to protect this multi-billion dollar project from market price fluctuations, thereby ensuring revenue stability for individual and industrial consumers. The GVH BWRX-300 is a 300 MWe water-cooled, natural circulation small modular reactor with passive safety systems. Its design and licensing basis are derived from GVH's ESBWR boiling water reactor design, which is certified by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and the licensed GNF2 fuel design.
The target sites for the first 14 units included in the support program application are Włocławek (central Poland), Stawy Monowskie near Oświęcim (southern Poland), and Stalowa Wola (southeastern Poland). The first BWRX-300 unit is scheduled to achieve commercial grid connection in Włocławek by 2032, where a formal cooperation agreement was signed with the city government in June. These 14 units represent the first phase of a large-scale, long-term plan, for which OSGE has obtained an in-principle decision from the Polish government to ultimately build up to 26 units nationwide.
This application marks a critical transition towards structuring the project at the national level and within an international framework. The Polish government will use OSGE's application to draft the necessary regulatory documents to notify the European Commission and seek state aid approval. The General Directorate for Environmental Protection (GDOŚ) has determined the scope of environmental impact assessments for the Włocławek and Stawy Monowskie sites, while the application for Stalowa Wola is still under review. The Stawy Monowskie site has formally received grid connection conditions from the national transmission system operator, Polish Power Grid Company (PSE). This implementation framework draws on the positive construction experience of Ontario Power Generation at the Darlington site in Canada, which serves as OSGE's primary global reference facility.
Government Plenipotentiary for Strategic Energy Infrastructure Wojciech Wrochna, while presenting the updated Polish Nuclear Power Program (PPEJ), noted that Contracts for Difference are a natural tool for supporting SMR projects. "The National Energy and Climate Plan clearly identifies the development of a support model for small nuclear projects as one of its measures," he stated at a press conference. "On this basis, a dedicated support model will be developed for small modular reactors, and the SMR roadmap will specify the available support mechanisms. We know what is available because EU state aid rules or EU regulations define the possibilities: Contracts for Difference and potentially state guarantees."
OSGE's application includes detailed justifications and calculations developed in cooperation with partners experienced in similar applications that have been notified to the European Commission. These partners include experts from KPMG in the UK and Czech Republic (who participated in preparing the notification documents for the Czech Dukovany II nuclear power plant project) and ETARA (advisor to the Swedish government on support instruments for new nuclear power project development). Following the submission, OSGE looks forward to active cooperation and the swift initiation of dialogue with the government.
Concurrently, OSGE is conducting advanced pre-construction work on the Włocławek project. The special purpose company BWRX-300 Włocławek has obtained a fundamental decision from the Ministry of Energy and a decision from the General Directorate for Environmental Protection regarding the scope of the environmental impact report. Environmental and site studies leading to the submission of a construction license application are ongoing. A local information center will also be established in the city to enable residents to access reliable knowledge about the project and nuclear energy.
