Rolls-Royce SMR has announced a list of potential locations for a new circa £200 million manufacturing plant – the first of three factories that will manufacture the ‘heavy vessels’ for its Small Modular Reactor (SMR) power station.

This is the largest and most complex facility, therefore, it is important to take decisions early to enable its deployment. Construction will begin once Rolls-Royce SMR receives the go-ahead to build a fleet of SMRs in the UK.

Shortlisted sites:

North East – IAMP Sunderland
Forrest Park Newton Aycliffe
North Yorkshire – Catterick 53, Richmond
Wales – Gateway, Deeside
Yorkshire – Ferrybridge
Greater Lincolnshire – Grimsby & Pioneer Park, Stallingborough
Cumbria – Kingmoor Park, Carlisle
The shortlist was selected against a clear set of criteria, picked from over 100 submissions from Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) and development agencies – suggesting sites across the UK where the Rolls-Royce SMR factories could be located.

Rolls-Royce SMR Chief Executive, Tom Samson, said: “I would like to thank everyone who sent in a submission suggesting locations in their region for the first Rolls-Royce SMR factory. The response was fantastic and shows the ambition and appetite of the UK to build and operate a fleet of SMRs which will provide affordable, low-carbon electricity for generations to come.

“The final location will come from the shortlist and will result in significant investment, long-term high-skilled jobs and will support the UK Government’s aspirations for levelling-up. Today’s announcement is another example of the pace of our project and why Rolls-Royce SMR is the UK’s domestic nuclear energy champion.”

Rolls-Royce SMR’s approach is a completely different way of building nuclear power stations, where 90% of the Rolls-Royce SMR built in factory conditions significantly reducing the timescales and project risk.

The other two factories will manufacture civils modules and mechanical electrical and plumbing (MEP) modules – which will be transported to sites and assembled into a nuclear power station that will generate 470MW of low-carbon electricity. These locations will be selected from the full list of submissions – giving all locations further opportunities to host a Rolls-Royce SMR factory.

Secretary of State for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy, Rt Hon Kwasi Kwarteng MP, said: “This is fantastic news for Sunderland, North Yorkshire, Deeside, Lincolnshire and Carlisle which, if these SMRs go ahead, could be at the forefront of manufacturing components for this British-made tech.

“Backed by £210m, SMRs have the potential to provide quicker and cheaper low-carbon nuclear power, and today’s announcement underlines the potential for new jobs around the country created by embracing this new technology.”

The factory, set to create more than 200 jobs, is expected to be around 23,000 square metres in size – equivalent to 3 football pitches

Rolls-Royce has been a nuclear reactor plant designer since the start of the UK nuclear submarine programme in the 1950s. Rolls-Royce SMR will draw upon standard nuclear energy technology that has been used in 400 reactors around the world.

The Rolls-Royce SMR power station will have the capacity to generate 470MW of low carbon energy, equivalent to more than 150 onshore wind turbines and enough to power a million homes. It will provide consistent baseload generation for at least 60 years, helping to support the roll out of renewable generation and overcome intermittency issues.

 

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