Rolls-Royce has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Cavendish Nuclear for cooperating on Rolls-Royce’s small modular reactors (SMR) programme.
The two companies have agreed to work together for developing roles in which Cavendish Nuclear could design, license, manufacture and deliver aspects of Rolls-Royce’s factory-fabricated small modular nuclear power plant.
Cavendish Nuclear’s capabilities in engineering design, validation and verification, as well as the provision of manufacturing facilities and capability for aspects of the SMR plant manufacture, would be explored.
Rolls-Royce said that its SMR has the potential to provide long-term low carbon power to support both on-grid and off-grid energy solutions.
SMR would also help in the decarbonisation of industry and the production of clean fuels to support the energy transition in the heat and transportation sectors.
Rolls-Royce signed the agreement as a consortium leader of the SMR programme, which has been working on the power station design over the last two years supported by UK Research and Innovation, a national funding agency of the UK Government.
The consortium currently includes nuclear industry brands such as Assystem, Atkins, BAM Nuttall, Laing O’Rourke, National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL), Jacobs, The Welding Institute (TWI) and Nuclear AMRC.
Rolls-Royce SMR Consortium CEO Tom Samson 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 program.
“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.”
Last November, Rolls-Royce signed a MoU with Exelon Generation for operating compact nuclear power stations in the UK and abroad.
