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SMRs could be generating by 2030, says ETI

Small modular reactors (SMRs) could be generating power in the UK by as early as 2030, a report by the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) has found.

It outlined a timeline for the development of a for a first-of-a-kind (FOAK) SMR which would need to be closely followed to get it up and running by then.

Preparatory talks between a vendor, a developer and the government would have to begin next year. The Generic Design Assessment process would have to begin in 2018, with the reactors being signed off four years later. The initial ground works for the reactor would then have to start in 2023, and full construction in mid-2025. 

The report said the government will have a “crucial role” to play in building up the confidence of early investors if the timeline is to be met. 

“Creating the right environment for increasing investor confidence is critical if this schedule is to be met,” said ETI nuclear strategy manager Mike Middleton. “There will be a key role for government in the first five years of any such programme to deliver an SMR policy framework which progressively reduces investor risk.”

There is the potential to “significantly improve” the economics of SMRs by using them to provide combined heat and power (CHP) via district heating networks.

The report said the use of nuclear reactors for CHP is “a proven and viable technological partnership which has been successfully used by numerous countries for many decades, including Switzerland and Russia. In addition, large city-scale non-nuclear district heat networks such as Warsaw, Copenhagen and Helsinki have provided reliable heating to hundreds of thousands of people for many decades.”

The ETI therefore called for SMRs to be built “CHP ready” so they can be fitted with the technology later. Estimated at around £10/KWe, “the extra cost is relatively small whilst the potential heat revenues are large”. It said this should also be considered for a FOAK reactor “even if there is no firm local demand for district heating systems at the time of SMR deployment”.

The idea behind SMRs is that, by virtue of being small and modular, large numbers of them can be pre-fabricated in factories to a single design before being transported on site and combined together to form larger plants. The hope is that constructing reactors in this way will bring down costs.  

In its 2015 autumn budget statement, the government announced it would invest £250 million in an “ambitious nuclear research and development programme”, including in a competition to find the “best value” small modular reactor (SMR) design for the UK.

The first phase of the competition was launched in March to gauge market interest among developers, utilities and investors. In August, the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy revealed the list of eligible contenders.

You can read Utility Week’s analysis of the potential of SMRs here