A preliminary exploration tells us that there are about 13 locations with power plants—that generate energy and electricity by burning coal and biomass or natural gas—in the Netherlands. Some of these plants may be able to run on alternative fuels such as hydrogen or synthetic hydrocarbons in the future, but most of them will still need to be replaced. We  expect that these plants will eventually become unprofitable due to an increasing CO₂ price and this will make the operators decide to decommission these plants; we also expect that this will compromise the security of electricity and/or heat energy supply.

The good news is that most plants are ideally suited to be replaced with SMRs—initially, because most of these plants have a capacity lower than 1000 megawatt. Looking at the existing plants, the average capacity is around 1400 megawatt. Nine locations are suitable for at least two 300 megawatt SMRs each.

Here are some important reasons for looking specifically at the replacement of existing plants: the plant is already in use (or has been); there are therefore precedents of successful
environmental impact reports and permits on the physical site; the site has one or more connections to the high-voltage grid; the site is accessible to all necessary equipment and components; and cooling facilities and cooling water are available.

It is essential that connections to the high-voltage grid and cooling facilities are available. This prevents new high-voltage lines from having to be drawn to a place, along inhabited areas. The fact that a permit has been issued at this power station to generate energy is also important. This sets a precedent for a new license. We therefore propose that policies should be put in place to encourage operators to replace the current power stations with nuclear power stations, using existing energy infrastructure as much as possible.