Netherlands to Acquire 70% Stake in Borssele Nuclear Power Plant

The Dutch government has reached an agreement to acquire a 70% stake in EPZ, the operator of the Borssele NPP. These shares will be purchased from the Province of Zeeland and its subordinate municipalities. The acquisition aims to ensure the long-term continued operation of the existing nuclear power plant.

It is understood that the Borssele Nuclear Power Station (Dutch: Kerncentrale Borssele) is the only commercial nuclear power plant still in operation in the Netherlands. It is located near the town of Borssele in the province of Zeeland in the southwestern Netherlands and is operated by the Dutch utility EPZ. The Borssele Nuclear Power Plant has a net electrical output of 485 megawatts (MWe), uses pressurized water reactor (PWR) technology, and has operated continuously and stably for more than half a century since being connected to the grid in 1973, consistently supplying about 3% of the Netherlands' national electricity. Under the statutory provisions of the Netherlands' former Nuclear Energy Act, the plant's maximum statutory service life was firmly locked at December 31, 2033, and regulators were legally prohibited from accepting any life-extension approval applications beyond that date. To strengthen the resilience of the grid's zero-carbon baseload, the Dutch cabinet formally submitted a legislative amendment to the Second Chamber of the States General (House of Representatives) in October 2025, proposing to completely remove the mandatory shutdown deadline of 2033 and strive to greatly extend the service life of the Borssele Nuclear Power Plant to 2054, provided that nuclear safety assessments meet the required standards. The amendment successfully passed the House of Representatives on June 16 this year and received final approval from the Senate on September 22, entering into force.

EPZ CEO Marco Muilenburg said in response that the Senate's approval removed the largest legal barrier, and EPZ will fully accelerate the engineering and compliance justification for the life-extension license application to prove to the public that nuclear energy will continue to provide the Netherlands with a safe, reliable, and responsible electricity baseload for decades to come. Currently, EPZ is conducting an in-depth Comprehensive Safety Evaluation under the strict supervision of the Netherlands Authority for Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection (ANVS) and in accordance with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) international safety standards, focusing on technical mechanism review under extreme conditions, component aging and degradation management, nuclear fuel cycle assurance, and long-term capital expenditure planning. It is expected to formally submit the statutory life-extension license application "around the summer of 2027."

The Dutch government not only plans to extend the life of Borssele to 2054, but even earlier, at the end of 2022, established Borssele as the preferred site for building two new large Generation III+ nuclear units of 1,000 to 1,650 megawatts, with grid connection planned around 2035, at which point the two reactors will contribute 9% to 13% of the Netherlands' clean baseload electricity.