Licences for nuclear facilities

A licence application is submitted to the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority, which reviews the application pursuant to the Act on Nuclear Activities (1984:3). The review also covers the Radiation Protection Act (2018:396) and certain provisions of the Environmental Code (1998:808). An application is also sent to the Land and Environment Court for review under the Environmental Code. There is a certain amount of coordination between the parallel reviews during the process.

We will reach an agreement with you on the procedure for submitting your application to the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority. If your application relates to a new reactor, contact the Section for Licensing of Nuclear Reactors. If your application relates to some other type of nuclear facility, contact the Section for Licensing of Nuclear Facilities.

Pursuant to the Environmental Code, the applicant must consult citizens, interest organisations, municipalities and other government agencies when preparing application documents. Consultation provides stakeholders with the opportunity to express views on the content and design of the environmental impact statement that is part of the application.

Among other things, the environmental impact statement shall include:

• information on the planned activity;
• alternative solutions for the activity;
• a description of the anticipated environmental impact of the activity; and
• information on measures to prevent negative environmental impact.

The consultation prescribed in the Environmental Code is intended to create consensus about what needs to be included in the environmental impact statement and raise potential problems and alternative solutions.

The Swedish Radiation Safety Authority gathers the opinions of stakeholders during the review of the application. The public have access to application documents and may submit their viewpoints. The Swedish Radiation Safety Authority shall also inform and solicit opinions from Denmark, Finland and Norway regarding licences for the location, construction and operation of nuclear facilities or amendments to the licence conditions. If a nuclear facility may have a significant environmental impact in other countries, those countries may also  express their views on the environmental impact statement via the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency.

Once the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority has completed its licensing review, in some cases it may decide to issue a licence. This applies when the total amount of radioactive material handled in the facility is below the limits set out in Section 16 of the Ordinance on Nuclear Activities, such as with shallow land disposal of low-level nuclear waste. In other cases, we will write a recommendation to the Government. If we recommend that a licence should be issued, we may propose licence conditions that require the licensee to obtain stepwise approval from us for the construction, test operation and routine operation of the facility and the associated radiation safety reports.

Once we have decided on our recommendation and the Land and Environment Court has reviewed the application, the matter is submitted to the Government for decision. The Government decides on the permissibility of the activity under the Environment Code and issues a licence under the Act on Nuclear Activities, including potential licence conditions. The Government may only permit an activity under the Environment Code if the municipality in question agrees on the matter. This is because municipalities have an absolute right to veto the Government’s permissibility assessment, unless it relates to intermediate fuel storage or final disposal of nuclear waste. If the Government decides to permit the activity, the case is returned to the Land and Environment Court. The court issues a licence under the Environment Code, as well as any licence conditions.

Sweden also has an obligation to inform the European Commission of any activity that may cause emissions that may affect other Member States. Based on the documentation supplied by the applicant, the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority reports to the European Commission.

When applying for a licence to conduct nuclear activities at a nuclear facility, it is your responsibility to prepare the documentation prescribed in both the Act on Nuclear Activities (1984:3) and the Environmental Code (1998:808). The Act on Nuclear Activities requires you to demonstrate that you, as the licensee, and the planned facility have the prerequisites to comply with applicable statutory requirements and regulations. Among other things, this means that you shall show that the conditions exist to design, locate, construct, operate and decommission the facility in a manner that avoids any radiological emergencies. Even so, you must also demonstrate that you will be capable of dealing with the consequences should a radiation emergency occur.

The time it takes the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority to process an application varies considerably depending on, for example, the complexity of the facility and whether similar licences have been issued previously or if the activity is the first of its kind. If an application is incomplete, the applicant will receive one or more requests for supplementation.

Licensing reviews of new nuclear power plants may last several years, while reviews of simpler facilities can be expected to be shorter. This is followed by additional processing time if the Government issues the licence under the Act on Nuclear Activities (1984:3). The case will then be sent  to the Land and Environment Court for a decision on a licence under the Environmental Code (1998:808).

A decision by the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority can be appealed to the Government within three weeks of the decision being received by the applicant. Only the applicant can appeal against a decision.

A Government decision may be appealed to the Supreme Administrative Court, but only on the grounds that the decision is in conflict with a rule of law. The court will not set aside a government decision if it is obvious that the effect of a confirmed legal error on the decision is insignificant.

For further information on appealing against government decisions, we refer you to the Supreme Administrative Court.

The fee for a licensing review by the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority depends on the type of nuclear facility the application concerns. The fee for a licensing review for a nuclear reactor is SEK 101,400,000. This fee is payable in three stages after invoicing, with approximately one third of the fee on each invoice: when the application is submitted, and then no later than one and two years after the application is submitted.

Additional fees are payable for the stepwise review after a licence has been issued.

If the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority’s review entails costs that significantly exceed the fee, the authority may decide to debit by the hour in addition to the fixed fee.

The following acts, ordinances and Swedish Radiation Safety Authority regulations regulate licensing reviews for nuclear facilities:

When terminating a licensed activity, the licensee must take the necessary measures to safely decommission and demolish facilities where activities are no longer to be conducted, until all activities at the facilities have ceased and all nuclear material and nuclear waste have been placed in a sealed final repository. The licensee may thus be responsible for the waste long after the facility has otherwise been decommissioned.

If the facility in question is a nuclear reactor, the regulations for operational nuclear reactors continue to apply until the reactor is permanently shut down and all nuclear material, in the form of spent fuel, has been removed.  After that, the same regulations apply as to other nuclear facilities. The Swedish Radiation Safety Authority may also regulate the decommissioning of nuclear facilities by deciding on licence conditions.

A licence application covers nuclear activities conducted at a nuclear facility. These terms are defined in Sections 1 and 2 of the Act on Nuclear Activities (1984:3).