The Swedish Radiation Safety Authority (Strålsäkerhetsmyndigheten, SSM) has recommended that the operators of the four reactors that will be stopped earlier than planned pay higher nuclear waste fees to ensure the Swedish nuclear waste fund is sufficient.
In October 2015, the shareholders of the Ringhals nuclear power plant in Sweden, namely Vattenfall (70.4%) and E.ON (29.6%), reached an agreement to shut down two reactors (881 MW Ringhals-1 and 807 MW Ringhals-2) in 2019 and 2020. E.ON and Fortum had just reached an agreement on the decommissioning of the 473 MW Oskarshamn-1 reactor and of the 638 MW Oskarshamn-2 reactor, which has been offline since May 2013; the second unit will not be restarted and the first unit will be shut down between 2017 and 2019.
With the withdrawal of these reactors, the amounts raised from the dismantling tax will be significantly cut. Therefore, SSM is proposing to increase the fee paid by Oskarshamn from öre 4.1/kWh to öre 6.7/kWh (from €0.44c/kWh to €0.72c/kWh) and that paid by Ringhals from öre 4.2/kWh to öre 5.5/kWh (from €0.45c/kWh to €0.59c/kWh).
The tax increase will have to be approved by the government. In December 2014, the government backed SSM's recommendation to almost double the fees paid for the nuclear waste fund over the 2015-2017 period.
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