Estonia Narrows Nuclear Plant Search to Three Sites in Viru-Nigula

Estonia has narrowed the search for a nuclear power plant site from six locations to three, all in Viru-Nigula municipality in Lääne-Viru County. ERR News reported on 7 November 2026 that the remaining areas are Madala, Malla and Letipea, about 120 kilometres east of Tallinn. A site at Lüganuse in Ida-Viru County was dropped on security grounds.

The shortlist rests on input from several agencies. Project manager Agnes Lihtsa said, "Above all, this decision rests on input received from the Ministry of Defense." She explained that each agency answered questions from its own field, and the defence ministry's view was that three sites could be considered further and three could not. The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications says the substantive work is only now beginning; in Lihtsa's words, until now it was about refining and supplementing the methodology.

The site search is part of a national designated spatial plan and strategic environmental assessment launched by the government in May 2025 for a plant with up to 600 megawatts of electrical capacity. ERR describes a small modular reactor as the type of facility that has been discussed for some years. Estonia has no nuclear power station today, and the article says nuclear generation would not come online before 2035 at the earliest, even if a plant is built.

The legal framework is moving in parallel. The Nuclear Energy and Safety Act, approved by the government in March 2026 and passed by the Riigikogu this summer, designates the Consumer Protection and Technical Regulatory Authority as the nuclear regulator. The Act requires parliamentary approval before any reactor is built. An October allocation of 2.2 million euros funds the regulator, starting with 13 specialists and targeting about 40 over four years.

Next comes public engagement. Initial route alternatives for the three sites are planned for early next year, to be presented to the public and discussed locally. Lihtsa acknowledged a delay of a few months, which she attributed to refining the methodology, and said the process is otherwise on schedule. The article reports no local reaction yet and gives no cost figure for the plant itself, so the main questions on price, siting acceptance and reactor choice remain open.

For Estonia the decision sits within a wider energy transition. A country that is working to replace fossil-based generation needs firm, low-carbon capacity alongside wind and solar and its battery storage build-out, and nuclear is one option under serious study. Choosing sites on security grounds as well as environmental ones also reflects the regional context in which Baltic energy infrastructure is now planned.

The next milestone is the early-next-year presentation of route alternatives, when residents of Viru-Nigula will first see the options and be able to respond.

Why it matters

A plant that could not generate before 2035 shows how long clean-energy decisions take. Narrowing to three sites and funding a regulator now is the slow, necessary groundwork that makes any later investment credible.