Selected bidders to enter negotiations with Great British Nuclear

Rolls-Royce small modular reactor

Source: Rolls-Royce

How Rolls Royce’s mini reactor might look

Great British Nuclear (GBN) has announced that four firms have been selected for the last round of the UK’s mini-nuclear reactor competition.

GE-Hitachi (GEH), Holtec, Rolls Royce and Westinghouse have all been picked to move to the next stage of the procurement process, where bidders will be invited to enter negotiations with the non-departmental public body.

GEH has signed an MoU with engineering firm AtkinsRéalis to advance the development of its small modular reactor (SMR) technology in the UK.

The agreement, announced earlier this month alongside partnerships with Aecom, Amentum, and Laing O’Rourke, supports GEH’s efforts to deploy its BWRX-300 SMR technology as part of the GBN ongoing SMR selection process.

AtkinsRéalis, already the architect engineer for the Darlington New Nuclear Project in Canada - home to the world’s first BWRX-300 reactor, set for operation in 2029 - will help GEH apply insights from the Canadian project to the UK initiative.

Hitachi SMR

Source: GE-Hitachi

A conceptual illustration of a GE-Hitachi’s BWRX-300 nuclear reactor unit

Joe St Julian, president, nuclear, AtkinsRéalis, said: “AtkinsRéalis has been working closely with GEH and our partners at Darlington to deliver the first commercial, land-based SMR in the western world.

“As a global partner to GEH, we look forward to leveraging our experience at Darlington and bringing our broader knowledge and experience in new nuclear build programmes to ensure GEH’s nth-of-a-kind UK project delivers efficiently and safely to support UK government’s aspirations of 24GWs of nuclear before 2050.”

Unlike conventional reactors, SMRs are smaller and made in factories, which the government hopes could enable quicker and cheaper delivery.

Developing the technology was a major element of the previous government’s ambition for a quarter of all UK electricity to come from nuclear power by 2050.

The new Labour government’s plans for nuclear power have yet to be set out in detail, but energy secretary Ed Miliband told MPs in July that he would give his “absolute support” to plans for a fleet of SMRs.

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