Rolls-Royce and Cavendish Nuclear have signed an agreement to explore how they can work together on small modular nuclear reactors.
Under the Memorandum of Understanding, Cavendish Nuclear will perform in the design, licensing, manufacturing and delivery aspects of the Rolls-Royce factory fabricated small modular nuclear power plant.
The agreement has been signed by Rolls-Royce in its role as consortium leader on the programme that has been working on the design of the power station for the
last two years with support from the UK Government through UK Research and Innovation.
The consortium already includes many brands including Assystem, Atkins, BAM Nuttall, Laing O’Rourke, National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL), Jacobs, The Welding Institute
(TWI) and Nuclear AMRC.
The Rolls-Royce SMR, which the consortium said can power a million homes, is a different approach to delivering new nuclear power and takes advantage of factory built modularisation techniques to drastically reduce the amount of on-site construction and can deliver a low cost nuclear solution that is competitive with renewable alternatives.
Tom Samson, chief executive of the Rolls-Royce SMR Consortium, said: “Our SMR programme has been designed to deliver clean affordable energy for all and does so with a revolutionary new approach aimed at commoditising the delivery of nuclear power through a factory build modularisation programme.
“Cavendish Nuclear, and its parent Babcock International Group, have unique capabilities within the UK industry with their world class manufacturing and modularisation capabilities at their facilities at Rosyth as well as their wider nuclear skill set delivering engineering and manufacturing solutions across the new build and decommissioning landscape.
“We are excited at the prospect of bringing those skills and capabilities into our SMR programme and in doing so making a meaningful contribution to the UK’s levelling up agenda and our Global Britain ambitions with the export potential of our SMR offering.”
