The financing system

In the early 1980s the Riksdag (Swedish parliament) devised a system to finance the costs for the future management and disposal of spent nuclear fuel and decommissioning and dismantling of the nuclear power reactors. This system has been modified and developed in some aspects, but its basic structure remains unchanged.

The principle is that the nuclear power industry should be liable for the costs. If it turns out that a reactor owner cannot pay, and Fund assets and guarantees are insufficient, the state – and thereby the taxpayers – will in the end have to contribute the necessary funds. For this reason, a special financing system is needed.

Under this system, the holder of a licence to own or operate a nuclear facility that gives or has given rise to residual products pays a special fee to the Swedish state.

Each reactor owner and other fee-liable licensee is fully responsible for all their costs, even if the fees accumulated in the Fund should prove to be insufficient. The party responsible for paying the nuclear waste fee must therefore provide a guarantee to the state for the costs the fee is intended to cover, but which are not covered by the paid-in and accumulated fees.

If the paid-in fees for a reactor owner or other fee-liable licensee should not suffice to cover the payer’s costs, fees paid in by another reactor owner may not be used to make up the difference. If Fund assets are left over for a fee-liable licensee after all costs relating to that fee-liable licensee have been paid, these surplus fees must be paid back to the payer.

The main features of the financing system are illustrated in the following figures.