UK ready for small modular reactor technology

WESTINGHOUSE Electric Company has announced that its Springfields nuclear fuel fabrication facility near Preston, UK has reached the requirements necessary to manufacture fuel assemblies for small modular reactor (SMR) technologies.

The company has proposed a partnership agreement with the UK government for funding to deploy SMR technology to advance the UK’s nuclear interests.

Mick Gornall, managing director of Westinghouse Springfields said, “Manufacturing SMR fuel at Springfields will secure the future of a strategic national asset of nuclear fuel manufacturing capability and safeguard highly-skilled UK jobs.”

SMR technologies are attractive for producing electricity from nuclear fuel on a smaller scale such as for powering specific districts, or for individual applications like desalination.

The design for the SMR is a 225 MW integral pressurised water reactor that has no primary components external to the reactor vessel.

Jeff Benjamin, senior vice president for new plants and major projects at Westinghouse said, “Our programme is ready to support the global SMR market, as evidenced by our ability to integrate reactor and fuel technology for the SMR programme, which has been proposed for the UK government.”

Westinghouse is reporting its SMR readiness status based upon fabrication data from two proprietary SMR fuel assemblies produced from its fabrication plant in Columbia, South Carolina, US.