Electricity costs for both large-scale reactors and small modular reactors (SMRs) could fall below $100/MWh under an optimistic scenario where technologies become standardised and deployed at a fleet level, data from the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) shows.
According to the Costs of Generating Electricity 2025 report from the NEA and the US-based Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), the median cost of large-scale nuclear in the near term is $141/MWh (€162), falling to $81/MWh (€93) if Generation III and advanced technology reaches “nth-of-a-kind” (NOAK) deployment levels.
Nuclear data supplied by 15 NEA countries showed expected costs of SMRs in the near-term at $146/MWh (€168), falling to $84/MWh (€97) should the technology reach NOAK.
This compared with a median cost of other clean energies including onshore wind of $59/MWh (€68), offshore wind at $115/MWh (€132) and solar at $67/MWh (€77).
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