Our Vision
To provide clean, affordable energy for all
A New Approach to Delivering Nuclear Power
Rolls-Royce SMR is a radically different approach to delivering new nuclear power.
By taking advantage of factory-built modularisation techniques that drastically reduce the amount of on-site construction, it can deliver a low-cost nuclear solution that is competitive with renewable alternatives.
At the heart of the Rolls-Royce SMR concept lies the innovative modularisation of reliable and proven technology, allowing maximum use of the factory environment combining standard components with advanced manufacturing techniques.
The Rolls-Royce SMR will operate at very high levels of availability (>92%) for 60 years, providing long term stable clean energy, to support both on-grid electricity as well as a range of off-grid clean energy solutions. It will support the decarbonisation of industry and the production of clean fuels to enable the energy transition in the wider heat and transportation sectors.
Our vision is to provide clean, affordable energy for all.
For nuclear power to be widely adopted and meaningfully contribute to the global effort to decarbonise, it needs to be commercially investable and reliably delivered.
The global challenge around decarbonisation is huge, with an increasing demand for clean, affordable electricity set to increase, driven by:
Increasing electrification of systems, including transport and heating systems
A growing hydrogen economy, where clean forms of hydrogen generation need clean electricity at large scale
The emergence of e-fuels and synthetic aviation fuels to enable decarbonisation of transport
An increasing demand for energy, driven by population growth and increasing global development
An increasing demand for constant forms of power to support a decarbonising electricity grid and growing technology industries, such as data centres.
Why is it needed?
Our SMR has been developed in direct response to the enormous challenge facing the world as we look for new technology solutions to decarbonise our future energy needs.
Climate change and its consequences are now rightly acknowledged as one of the greatest challenges ever to face mankind and our SMR represents the most compelling way in which nuclear energy can play a significant role in that future clean energy world by helping to decarbonise electricity generation.
They can also become a source of clean energy that powers the production of future fuels (for example Hydrogen and Synthetic Aviation Fuel (SAF)) needed to decarbonise other sectors such as transport, heat and other industries.
And it's a global challenge
Governments and industrial companies need reliable, affordable low carbon power sources to achieve their Net Zero targets. Nuclear is acknowledged as a ready-now low carbon technology but to-date has only been affordable to the governments of a few major world economies. Rolls-Royce SMR’s ambition is to disrupt that pattern and make reliable, low carbon power from nuclear plants available on a commercial basis to a wide range of end users all over the world.
Nuclear is capable of providing constant, predictable power at scale and therefore has a strong role to play in the future, but to succeed it must be competitive with other forms of low carbon technology on a like-for-like basis.
How is it Different?
The current, outdated model of nuclear new build as a major, one-off infrastructure project is not fit for purpose in a world that needs new nuclear power stations delivered quickly and affordably to a wide variety of global locations.
Our approach means that approximately 90% of the plant will be factory fabricated and delivered by road or rail as modules to the prepared site, where the plant will be assembled and commissioned by the Rolls-Royce SMR team under a turnkey Engineering, Manufacture, Assembly (EMA) contract.
Offering a nuclear power station as a manufactured product delivers the cost and risk reductions and quality improvements associated with factory fabrication, while simultaneously removing the expense, lead-time and risk associated with developing a new, inexperienced supply chain and EPC contractor team for each new plant constructed.
The Rolls-Royce SMR has been designed from the outset with end user requirementmarket driven outcomes at the heart of the design.
