Sweden will expand its nuclear power capacity to accelerate the country's transition to fossil-free electricity production while ensuring energy supplies in times of crisis, the government said on Thursday.

The news comes as the government launches an inquiry into the future role of nuclear power, marking a shift from the previous policy of gradually moving to 100% renewable energy generation by 2040.

The new goal is to achieve 100% fossil-free electricity production by the same year, in quantities sufficient to electrify the transport sector and meet the growing energy needs of industry, such as battery factories and facilities that use hydrogen instead. Coal produces green steel. The inquiry will examine options for simplifying and speeding up the nuclear power licensing process.

"We need to simplify the regulatory framework and prepare for our authorities to submit applications for both conventional and small modular reactors." This applies to both existing and new technologies." Climate and Environment Minister Romina Pourmokhtari. , said in a press release.

More nuclear power also means more stable and competitive electricity prices, while ensuring a secure and robust energy supply for both military and civilian use, the government said in a press release.

Wind power is set to increase to 19 percent of Sweden's total electricity generation by 2022, from about 3,500 gigawatt hours (GWh) in 2010 to 33,000 GWH last year, but the government says more predictable forms of energy, such as nuclear power, are key to ensuring a stable power supply at any given time.

Meanwhile, the Energy Agency has calculated that the country's electricity consumption will double to 280 terawatt hours (TWh) per year by 2035 and 370 TWh by 2045.

Hydropower has long been Sweden's most important source of electricity production, but due to the rapid expansion of nuclear power in the 1970s, Sweden at one point had 12 nuclear reactors in operation.

However, a referendum in 1980 (a year after the Three Mile Island accident) decided that all reactors would be decommissioned by 2010. The date was later revised in two broad political agreements.

After six reactors were decommissioned between 1999 and 2020, there are currently six operating units at three sites in Sweden, accounting for about 30 percent of the country's total electricity generation, according to the Radiation Safety Authority. Editor/Xu Shengpeng