Rosatom Will Sell Indonesia Electricity From Floating Nuclear Plants - the First Megawatts Only in Five Years

State corporation Rosatom and the Indonesian company PT Pembangkit Listrik Nuklir have signed an agreement to supply electricity to eastern Indonesia via floating nuclear power units. The deal was signed in Moscow, on the sidelines of Russian Energy Week, and the Russian side immediately declared it a world first: the first export project to supply electricity from this type of plant.

The numbers, once you set the marketing aside, are more modest than the headlines. The agreement provides for two floating PEB-100 units, with a total capacity of 200 megawatts, for consumers in the north of Halmahera island, in the North Maluku region. The plants will use ship reactors from the RITM family. The first megawatts are expected five years after the agreement's basic conditions take effect. So, not tomorrow, and not next year.

The project, according to the signatories, is being carried out in a "business to business" format, exclusively with private investment and with no money from Indonesia's state budget. Rosatom director general Alexey Likhachev said cooperation with Indonesia is "developing very dynamically" and that this is "the world's first export contract for the supply of electricity from a floating nuclear power unit." One of the Indonesian investors personally thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for what he called fruitful cooperation.

The wider context. Since 2020 Rosatom has operated the floating plant Akademik Lomonosov, and according to the company it currently has 27 active construction sites in nine countries, including the first export small nuclear plant in Uzbekistan. Worldwide, according to Rosatom, around 80 similar concepts are in the design phase. The West sanctions Russia, while the Russian nuclear industry meanwhile signs deals from Central Asia to the Pacific.

That leaves the questions missing from the press releases. Indonesia is a country with frequent earthquakes and tsunamis, and a nuclear reactor will be anchored off its coast. Who answers if something goes wrong - the private investor, Moscow or Jakarta? And how much of the "deal of the century" will be left when, in five years, it's time for the first megawatt?

In the Balkans, nuclear energy is a topic that gets mentioned more than built. Indonesia decided not to wait - and to have the plant come to it by sea. How many Balkan states would accept a nuclear plant arriving by ship, and who would they buy it from?