Government, Vattenfall and E.ON negotiators have agreed compensation of SEK 5.6 billion (€582 million) to be paid by the state as a result of the December 2004 decision to shutdown reactor 2 at the Barsebäck nuclear plant as of 1 June 2005.

Vattenfall will be granted compensation for its 74.2% share of ownership in Barsebäck unit 2 and the deal also allows E.ON Sweden to increase its share of ownership in the Ringhals nuclear plant by 3.76%, granting E.ON the same amount of power at the same cost as it would have been supplied by Barsebäck.

The agreement also sees the state pay compensation for additional costs in connection with the shutdown and service operations of reactor 2 while previously agreed state compensation for the single operation of reactor 2 ceased when the reactor was shut down.

The state will pay SEK 4.1 billion (€426 million) in cash as compensation to Vattenfall over a four-year period while compensation for additional costs of shutdown and service operations amount to a total of approximately SEK 1.53 billion (€159 million) for the period from 2005 until the end of June 2017, when the reactor’s lifespan would have reached 40 years.

Since compensation has been reduced by around SEK 2.4 billion (€249 million) for the single operation of B2, the net costs for the state amount to SEK 3.2 billion (€332 million).

The compensation is based on the deal reached over the closure of reactor 1 at Barseback in 1999.

Alf Lindfors, head of Vattenfall Nordic Generation said of the deal: “We are satisfied with the commercial agreement that has now been reached between the Swedish State, E.ON and Vattenfall,” adding “We have been reasonably compensated for the generation capacity lost at Barsebäck 2 and for our holdings in Ringhals.”