ENEC shares its roadmap for establishing nuclear program with Serbia

Serbia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) see nuclear energy as an option that can ensure secure energy supply in the period of decarbonization, and in line with projected consumption growth for the years and decades to come, enabling reliable and clean production of baseload energy, it was announced after talks between the Minister of Mining and Energy of Serbia, Dubravka Djedovic Handanovic, and the CEO of the UAE Nuclear Energy Company (ENEC), Mohamed Ibrahim Al Hammadi.

– ENEC has expressed its readiness to share with us its roadmap for establishing a nuclear program and for further development of cooperation with our institutions and companies on this issue. ENEC has been developing its nuclear program for four years, and the construction and commissioning took ten years, and it can share with us its experience and knowledge on improving the professional and technical staff needed for the development, construction and management of a nuclear facility in a country that is just starting to use nuclear energy for peacetime purposes – said Djedovic Handanovic after the meeting in Dubai, the ministry announced.

She added that ENEC’s experience provided a better insight into the requirements and challenges of implementing the Nuclear Energy Program in relation to the storage and management of radioactive waste, the procurement of nuclear fuel, the engagement of all relevant parties in terms of the project, as well as financing options.

The minister emphasized that this company had cooperated with numerous technology carriers around the world, and that their insight and assessment of available nuclear technologies on the market was therefore important.

– We will consider whether Serbia can join the international ENEC program through which they share their experiences and consider investments in nuclear programs in countries around the world, and we will continue the talks towards formalizing the cooperation that we launched today – she stated.

The Minister reminded that Serbia had lifted the moratorium on the construction of nuclear energy a year and a half before, that the Energy Development Strategy until 2050 had been adopted, and that the first phase of the nuclear program development, a feasibility study, which preceded making informed decisions and selecting potential partners and technologies, was underway at that moment.

The UAE launched the program for the use of nuclear energy for peacetime purposes in 2008, in order to meet growing energy needs. They started construction of the first power plant in 2012, and the first unit was online in 2021. To date, four units have been built, the last in 2024, which meet about a quarter of the UAE’s electricity needs. The UAE has about 5.6 gigawatts of installed nuclear energy capacity.

Ministarstvo rudarstva i energetike Republike Srbije

UAE Nuclear Energy Company

ENEC

Dubravka Đedović Handanović

Mohamed Ibrahim Al Hammadi

nuclear energy

nuclear program