Copenhagen Atomics has been awarded funding from the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator programme to advance the development of its thorium molten salt reactors (MSRs). The company is one of just 40 startups selected out of approximately 150 finalists in the latest round of EIC funding for breakthrough technologies with high market potential. Copenhagen Atomics will receive €2.5m ($2.35m) in grant funding to support continued technological development and prototype validation. It will also have access to up to €15m in equity investment through to help scale operations and prepare for market entry.
The technology being developed by Copenhagen Atomics is a heavy water moderated thorium molten salt reactor built into a 40-foot container. The plan is to mass manufacture the reactors on an assembly line, with an output of one reactor per day per assembly line. The output per reactor is 100 MWt and the idea is to put them together like Lego bricks for large deployments. This makes the technology suitable for power production and other applications like process heat for industrial use, including production of hydrogen and green ammonia.
The technology is expected to reach an electricity price (LCoE) below $20/MWh in a mass manufacturing scenario. Copenhagen Atomics is also planning an “energy-as-a-service” business model, where it will build, own, operate and decommission the thorium reactor, with no investment required by the customer, and no need for taxpayer investments. The thorium reactor can utilise used fuel from conventional NPPs (reducing the storage time from 100,000 years to 300 years).
To date, the company has built and tested two full-scale prototypes, logging more than 10,000 operating days on key subsystems including pumps, heat exchangers, and salt purification units. The next phase includes building a third non-fission prototype and preparing for the company’s first nuclear test in partnership with the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland.
The EIC funding will support the further development of Copenhagen Atomics’ manufacturing infrastructure, supply chain, and licensing framework, all of which are critical for the commercial rollout. The long-term goal is to deploy fleets of these reactors to supply industrial heat and electricity for applications such as desalination, hydrogen and ammonia production.
