Britain has picked a former nuclear site in North Wales for the state-sponsored deployment of three Rolls-Royce small modular reactors (SMRs).
The decision to choose the Wylfa site on the island of Anglesey, where two nuclear reactors were decommissioned in 2015, comes after the British government in June selected Rolls-Royce as preferred bidder for an SMR development programme that could grant up to £2.5bn (US$3.3bn) in subsidies to the SMR industry.
Chris Cholerton, Rolls-Royce SMR chief executive, said: “We are honoured to have the opportunity to establish our UK fleet programme with an initial three units at the Wylfa site.”
The 1.5GW Wylfa project will lay the groundwork for ‘a fleet-based approach to nuclear development,’ the British government said on 13 November. Wylfa is part of government efforts to quadruple the UK’s nuclear power capacity to 24GW by 2050.
The decision to offer the Wylfa site to Rolls-Royce, which is developing a 470MW pressurised water reactor, has angered the Trump administration, which wanted US energy firm Westinghouse to build a large nuclear project there.
For more information visit EICDataStream https://eicdatastream.the-eic.com/search/project/688032/Wylfa-Newydd-Nuclear-Power-Plant