Company’s reactor on government shortlist for deployment
The British arm of US nuclear company Holtec International has launched a competition to find a site for a £600m (€702m, $767m) factory in Britain to build small modular reactors, Reuters reported.
According to Reuters, local authorities and businesses will be invited to submit expressions of interest to host the factory, outlining which sites could be available and how ready they would be for work to start on the factory.
Holtec said it expects exports from the factory to be worth £4bn a year to the UK in 2030, adding that 400 highly-skilled jobs could be created in the next three to five years.
Holtec Britain leads a consortium, including South Korea’s Hyundai, whose SMR-300 technology is one of six that have been shortlisted in the government competition run by the Great British Nuclear body.
The other five shortlisted companies for the competition are Rolls Royce SMR, EDF, GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy International, NuScale Power and Westinghouse Electric Company UK.
The Reuters report follows the recent signing of a memorandum of understanding by Holtec and Balfour Beatty, an international infrastructure group based in the UK.
In December 2022, Balfour Beatty agreed to work with Holtec on early plans for SMRs in the UK – but last week signed a new, more comprehensive deal with the US nuclear giant to draw up designs for a new nuclear plant.
Holtec was awarded £30m (€35m, $38m) from the government’s Future Nuclear Enabling Fund in December to complete a generic design assessment of its SMR technology, known as SMR-300. The company is also backed by an $116m grant awarded by the US Department of Energy in 2020.
Holtec is one of six companies shortlisted by government-owned Great British Nuclear in a competition to establish the most viable SMR designs.
UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt said in his budget that the companies would be asked to return tenders by June.
Engineering consultancy Mott MacDonald and South Korean manufacturer Hyundai also signed the MOU with Holtec.
