Romanian nuclear producer Nuclearelectrica will continue developing the Doicești small modular reactor project after shareholders rejected a proposal to review the implementation strategy, alternative technologies and possible project locations.
The vote took place at the company’s General Shareholders’ Meeting on 15 July 2026. The Romanian Ministry of Energy, which controls a majority stake, supported continuation of the roadmap approved in 2022.
Nuclearelectrica and project company RoPower Nuclear will continue negotiations with NuScale Power on the commercial terms for supplying SMR modules and on the wider project framework agreement. Discussions with the Romanian Government will also continue over financial support and other conditions required before a final investment decision.
The decision preserves continuity but does not remove the project’s central risks. Doicești would represent the first commercial deployment of NuScale’s technology, creating technical, financing, construction and operating uncertainties beyond those associated with an established large-reactor design.
Nuclearelectrica has acknowledged that the project cannot enter the Pre-EPC phase until all final-investment-decision conditions have been met. Government support, commercial terms, risk allocation and the financing structure remain unresolved.
For lenders and strategic investors, first-of-a-kind technology creates a difficult contractual problem. The engineering, procurement and construction package must allocate design-performance risk, module-delivery risk, licensing obligations, schedule delay and cost escalation among parties with sufficient financial capacity to absorb them.
A strategy review might have reopened the technology and site selection, but it would also have delayed development and weakened the value of work already completed. Shareholders instead chose to continue the existing platform while negotiating the outstanding commercial and state-support arrangements.
The next significant disclosure is expected in September 2026, when Nuclearelectrica plans to provide shareholders with an updated progress assessment. The project remains active, but the absence of an FID and the inability to enter Pre-EPC leave it in a development stage where political commitment is stronger than contractual certainty.
