Rolls-Royce has written to a number of Local Enterprise Partnerships in England and Wales, inviting bids to be the location of the main factory to build its SMR. It has promised an investment of up to £200 million and that around 200 direct jobs will be created.
The Rolls-Royce consortium plans to build the reactors in various factories, to be assembled on site. The main factory will build the heavy pressure vessels. Rolls-Royce said that it was looking for proposals that identified “sites based on our selection criteria together with supporting evidence of financial and non-financial support where appropriate.” It said that it was mainly interested in what sort of skills training facilities already exist, how much land is available, and local incentives for the deployment of on-site renewable power generation.
The reactors will be installed at existing nuclear sites in Britain. Wylfa and Trawsfynydd are said to be under consideration.