Rolls-Royce Gets Big Boost for Mini-Nuclear Power Plants

Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--Car and aerospace major Rolls-Royce (LSE:RR) (London, England) has secured the funding needed for the deployment and commercialisation of its small modular reactor (SMR) technology.

The company, alongside partners BNF Resources U.K. Limited and Exelon Generation Limited will now invest £195 million (US$263 million) over the next three years, which will be matched by government funding of £210 million (US$284 million) from U.K. Research and Innovation. They have formed a new company--Rolls-Royce SMR Limited--and will now enter the U.K. Generic Design Assessment (GDA) process identifying sites for the factories which will manufacture the modules that enable on-site assembly of the power plants.

Warren East, Rolls-Royce chief executive officer, said: "With the Rolls-Royce SMR technology, we have developed a clean energy solution which can deliver cost competitive and scalable net zero power for multiple applications from grid and industrial electricity production to hydrogen and synthetic fuel manufacturing. The business could create up to 40,000 jobs, through U.K. deployment and export enabled growth."

U.K. Business and Energy Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng added: "This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for the U.K. to deploy more low carbon energy than ever before and ensure greater energy independence. Small Modular Reactors offer exciting opportunities to cut costs and build more quickly, ensuring we can bring clean electricity to people's homes and cut our already-dwindling use of volatile fossil fuels even further. In working with Rolls-Royce, we are proud to back the largest engineering collaboration the U.K. has ever seen."

Based on small pressurised water reactors, the company plans to build 16 SMRs, each capable of generating up to 440 megawatts (MW) of electricity--enough to power 450,000 homes for 60 years. Each plant will take up 10% of the footprint of a conventional nuclear power plant--roughly two soccer pitches. The eventual goal is to have a 500-day modular build--significantly shorter than the construction of more traditional nuclear power plants--and with a proposed price tag of £1.8 billion (US$2.4 billion) or less by the time the first five have been constructed. The first plants will be operational by the early 2030s, with 10 completed by 2035. Around 90% of the plants will be constructed in factory conditions while up to 80% (by value) of the power station components will be made in factories in the Midlands and North of England, before being transported via road, rail or sea to existing nuclear sites around the country for rapid assembly inside weatherproof canopies.

The U.K. is investing heavily in new forms of nuclear power as the country relies on old, end-of-life plants to supply roughly 16% of the country's power. Half are expected to close by 2025 and the rest by 2030, while there is only one new plant--Hinkley Point C--under construction. In August, the government announced a funding pot of £170 million (US$237 million) to develop its first advanced modular reactor (AMR) demonstrator project. The funding for smaller, more flexible nuclear technologies will be invested specifically into high temperature gas reactors (HTGRs) which, it claimed, is the most promising model for the demonstration programme. HTGRs are one of the main six AMR technologies defined by the international Generation IV forum, alongside lead-cooled fast reactor, molten salt reactor, supercritical water-cooled reactor, sodium-cooled fast reactor and gas-cooled reactor. For additional information, see August 10, 2021, article - U.K. Bets Big on Advanced Modular Reactors.

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