CAREM-25
CAREM-25 is a light water-cooled reactor design from Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica rated at 29 MWe. Nuclear construction has begun.
First concrete in 2014, which makes it one of the earliest SMR construction starts anywhere, and it is still not finished. Work has been suspended more than once, including a two-year halt from November 2019, and is suspended again. Argentina designed an integral PWR with natural circulation and no primary pumps before most of the current SMR industry existed, and the record here is a caution about reading a construction start as progress.
| Tier | Under construction |
|---|---|
| Regulator | Autoridad Regulatoria Nuclear (Argentina) |
| Application type | Construction licence |
| Docket / reference | ARN construction licence, Formosa site at Lima, Buenos Aires province |
| Application date | - |
| Review phase | Licensed and under construction since 2014; work currently suspended |
| Decision expected | not stated |
| Coolant | Light water |
|---|---|
| Reactor family | Pressurised water reactor (PWR) |
| Electrical output | 29MWe |
| Thermal output | not disclosed |
| Fuel | Uranium dioxide |
| Enrichment | LEUAround 3.1% U-235 |
| First site | CAREM |
| Offtakers | none announced |
Units announced with this design
1 unit in the Global Nuclear Power Tracker carry the model name "CAREM Prototype (Integrated-PWR)", 1shelved. Announcement is not permission; compare this against the regulatory position above.
| Unit | Country | Status | Gross MW |
|---|---|---|---|
| CAREM nuclear power plant | Argentina | shelved | 29 |
Sources
- World Nuclear Association, CAREM-25 reactor record · retrieved 2026-09-06
- Announced units: Global Nuclear Power Tracker, Global Energy Monitor, August 2026 release , CC BY 4.0
How these sources are used, including the corrections applied on top of them and what is deliberately left blank · download the underlying data