Latest News | 25 May 2021
Rolls-Royce-led consortium reveals nuclear power station design
A consortium led by Rolls-Royce has revealed its latest design for a compact nuclear power station.
It has also announced that the technology, knows as a small modular reactor (SMR), will be more powerful than first envisaged.
The UK SMR consortium has completed work on its first phase on time and under budget.
It is now aiming to be the first design to be assessed by regulators in the second half of this year.
This will keep it on track to complete its first unit in the early 2030s and build up to 10 by 2035.
As the power station’s design has adjusted and improved, the Rolls-Royce-led team has optimised the configuration, efficiency and performance criteria of the entire power station.
This has increased its expected power capacity, without additional cost, from 440 megawatts (MW) to 470MW.
The power station’s compact size makes it suitable for a variety of applications, helping decarbonise entire energy systems.
Each power station can supply enough reliable low carbon power for around a million homes or be used to power net zero hydrogen and synthetic aviation fuel manufacturing facilities, desalination plants or energy intensive industrial sites.
The power stations will be built by the new UK SMR business, before being handed over to be operated by power generation companies.
In November, the consortium signed a Memorandum of Understanding with US giant Exelon Generation to pursue the potential for Exelon Generation to operate compact nuclear power stations both in the UK and internationally.
Tom Samson, chief executive of the UK SMR consortium, said: “Nuclear power is central to tackling climate change, securing economic recovery and strengthening energy security.
“To do this it must be affordable, reliable and investable and the way we manufacture and assemble our power station brings down its cost to be comparable with offshore wind at around £50 per megawatt-hour.
“As we reach the end of our first phase, I’m proud that our team has designed a product that can be commoditised to provide the scale required to be a key part of the world’s decarbonisation efforts.
“We are ready to go and hope to be first in line to start the rigorous Generic Design Assessment process in the Autumn of this year.”
