The British government selects the six SMR projects for the revival of nuclear energy, with notable absences
The UK government on October 2 selected six small modular nuclear reactor ( SMR ) designs from American, British and French companies to advance to the next phase of its “massive revival” of the country's nuclear power. sector.
Each company will be invited to bid for government contracts later this year with selected bidders to be announced in the spring and contracts awarded by next summer. A rapid procedure that should lead to nuclear power plants being available soon.
Selected bidders include US-based NuScale Power, GE-Hitachi and Westinghouse Electric, as well as UK-based Holtec Britain and Rolls Royce SMR, and France-based EDF Energy.
The UK Government aims to meet 25% of the UK's energy demand through nuclear generation by 2050, expected to reach 25GW, with 85% of the UK's existing nuclear power stations set to be decommissioned by 2035 .
The government has said it believes the six companies' designs are most capable of delivering the first operational SMRs by the middle of the next decade.
Westinhouse reactor
The selection process aimed to “prioritize reliable and sustainable [nuclear] energy from the outset and that is why we focused our first step on the technologies we deemed most suitable to achieve the goal of a nuclear decision final investment in 2029,” said Gwen Parry-Jones, chief executive of Great British Nuclear, a government body set up last year to advance new projects.
Nuward supercompact reactor – French EDF
Leaving for next summer?
The UK plans to announce by next spring which of the six companies it will support and expects to award contracts by the summer of 2024. “This timetable aims to make this competition the fastest of its kind in the world,” Great British noted Nuclear. It released bidding documents to potential bidders on July 18.
“This competition has attracted projects from around the world and places the UK at the forefront of the global race to develop this exciting, cutting-edge technology and consolidate our position as a world leader in nuclear innovation,” the Safety Secretary said energetic Claire Coutinho.
The Rolls-Royce-led consortium, which includes engineering services firms Atkins and Jacobs as well as British contractors BAM Nuttall and Laing O'Rourke, aims to build 16 SMRs and plans to complete the first unit in 2030 and build up to 10 by 2035 Its SMR technology is under review by UK regulators, with possible approval by mid-2024.
US-based Holtec International has partnered with London-based Hyundai Engineering and Construction and Balfour Beatty. It plans to build 32 units by 2050, of which the first will be operational in 2028.
GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy plans to build its BWRX-300 project. The company said Jacobs supported it in the design review process in the UK.
NuScale Power, which has the only SMR design certified by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, will compete with a 77 MW module that can be scaled up to a four-, six- or 12-module nuclear power plant. A version is now proposed to be built at the Idaho National Laboratory.
EDF's choice is for NUWARD, a 340 MW PWR technology that would feature two reactors of 170 MW each, and will have the support of the French government to develop the project.
“The Government stands ready to consult later in the year on how best to ensure that other nuclear technologies can potentially be started in the UK and this may include some of the technologies that have not been selected through this process,” Great said British Nuclear, but did not reveal which technologies were not selected.
According to British media reports, TerraPower, a US-based developer of advanced nuclear technologies backed by major investor Bill Gates, is not among the selected companies. One report claims its sodium-based Natrium nuclear reactor technology depends on uranium, which is mainly produced in Russia and is now subject to sanctions. The units would have a capacity of 345 MW, with a combined storage unit bringing this to 500 MW during periods of highest demand. His absence from the program contradicts what was previously communicated by the company's CEO. .
In July, Great British Nuclear said up to $98 million would be available for companies to accelerate the development of advanced nuclear business in the UK and support advanced nuclear projects.
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The article British government selects six SMR projects to revive nuclear energy, with notable absences comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/il-governo-britannico-seleziona-i-sei-progetti-smr-per-il-rilancio-dellenergia-nucleare-con-assenze-eccelleti/ on Wed, 04 Oct 2023 09:00:14 +0000.