Westinghouse remains committed to UK SMR

Westinghouse Electric Company has "re-affirmed its commitment" to delivering economic benefit to the UK through its small modular reactor (SMR) shared design and development model. This will enable the UK to "move from buyer to global provider" of SMR technology, the company's Springfields, UK subsidiary said yesterday.

In November 2015, the British government announced plans to invest at least £250 million over the next five years in a nuclear research and development program including a competition to identify the best value SMR design for the UK.

"The UK is an extremely important market for Westinghouse. We believe that we can deliver even greater economic benefit to the UK through our nuclear new build projects, in addition to the £100 million spent annually by the company in the local economy," said Mick Gornall, UK managing director for Westinghouse. "More than 85% of our SMR's design, licence and procurement scope can be delivered by the UK. Additionally, the fuel would also be manufactured at our Springfields facility, in Lancashire - this is a special offering that only Westinghouse, with UK partners, can deliver."

Westinghouse's Springfields nuclear licensed site supplies fuel for up to 22% of the UK's electricity. It is there, where the fuel for the company's AP1000 nuclear reactors and SMRs in the UK would be fabricated.

The AP1000 reactor design completed the UK Generic Design Assessment in March. Westinghouse said its 225 MWe SMR design benefits from sharing platforms, systems, and processes with the Westinghouse AP1000 reactor technology.

There are four AP1000 units nearing completion in China, which helps provide "increased delivery certainty" for Westinghouse's SMR design, the company said. The factory built modules of both the AP1000 technology and the Westinghouse SMR could be manufactured in the UK, "providing Nth of a kind economic benefits - leading to competitive generating costs", it added.

Other participants in the UK's SMR competition include a UK consortium led by Rolls-Royce; French-owned EDF Energy and its Chinese partner CNNC; and the US developer NuScale Power.

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News