Rolls-Royce will establish an SMR module manufacturing and testing facility in Sheffield

The first phase will see a £2.7m investment that is part of a wider package of at least £15m that will “de-risk and support” the Rolls-Royce SMR programme, the company said.

The facility will be housed in the University of Sheffield’s existing Factory 2050 at its AMRC Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre). AMRC will produce working prototypes of the individual modules to be assembled into the Rolls-Royce SMR.

Victoria Scott, Rolls-Royce SMR chief production engineer, hailed the announcement as a “significant milestone” in the development of its SMRs.

“Our factories will produce hundreds of prefabricated and pre-tested modules ready for on-site assembly,” she continued. “This facility will enable us to refine our manufacturing, testing and digital approach to manufacturing – helping to de-risk our program and ensuring we increase our delivery certainty.”

ARMC’s Factory 2050 is a state-of-the-art facility with reconfigurable spaces to enable collaborative research in digital manufacturing, processing technologies and component manufacturing.

The President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sheffield said the institution was “very proud” to have been selected by Rolls-Royce SMR as a module development base. He added that it was “a testament to the university’s strengths in clean energy research and innovation and our unrivaled expertise in developing cutting-edge manufacturing techniques”.

South Yorkshire Mayor Oliver Coppard said the commitment “consolidates South Yorkshire’s position as the leading site for building small modular reactors” and is “a sign of real confidence in our region’s world-leading advanced manufacturing innovation district, which it helps us create a bigger and bigger center. better economy”.

SMRs are nuclear power plants that have a smaller capacity than large-scale nuclear power plants, the model proposed by Rolls Royce being 470 MW. They are, in theory, faster and cheaper to implement, and their construction will be easily repeatable thanks to their modular design, which will see parts created in a factory.

It is hoped that the first UK SMRs will come online in the early 2030s as they are seen as crucial for the UK to reach its target of 24GW of nuclear capacity by 2050.

The UK’s new nuclear body Great British Nuclear (GBN) is currently running a competition for the best SMR design. The winner will receive government contracts to be promoted, although other designs may still be implemented through other means.

Six SMR designs are currently being considered in the UK, each at different stages of assessment by the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR).

The Rolls-Royce SMR design was the first to move into the second phase of Generic Design Assessment (GDA) in April 2023, being progressed by the Environment Agency, ONR and Natural Resources Wales.

Rolls-Royce SMR says it is the first nuclear technology company in over a generation and the announcement of the test facility is a “vital step” towards deploying a fleet of SMRs.

Each of its 470 MW SMRs is said to be able to power 1 million homes for over 60 years.

There have been some doubts, with the Environmental Audit Committee saying that SMRs will not be able to help the UK decarbonise by 2035.

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