Meitner Energy has committed to building an ACR-300 small modular reactor at the Atucha nuclear complex near Buenos Aires. The initiative, which was announced by Argentina’s economy minister Luis Caputo, will have an estimated investment of $1.2 billion, which will be funded through US private capital and mark the largest investment in the history of the country’s nuclear sector.
The ACR-300 is a 300 MWe Gen III+ light water SMR, which has been designed and patented by the Bariloche headquartered Invap. No date has been specified for completion, but in March 2025 plans were announced to install four ACR-300 SMRs at Atucha, with the first in operation by 2030.
Meitner Energy is owned 40% by Invap and 60% by the Ansari US investment group.
Cost effective
Describing the ACR-300, Meitner Energy asserts that it is the only SMR designed to be scalable and cost effective, and that it has the lowest physical construction burden per megawatt among grid scale SMRs. Atucha is located 100 km northwest of Buenos Aires and contains the 362 MWe Atucha I – the first nuclear plant in Latin America – and the 745 MWe Atucha II plant. Atucha I came into operation in 1974, and is currently undergoing a 30-month upgrade and modernisation. Due to be completed in early 2027, the works should give it a further 20 years of operating life.
Works being undertaken include updating the electronic and mechanical systems, renovation of the reactor and refrigeration systems and structural reinforcement to comply with the current international security requirements.
Together with the 656 MWe Embalse plant a further 600 km away at Rio Tercero, these plants under the management of Nucleoeléctrica Argentina contribute approximately 8% of Argentina’s electricity generation.
