Nuclear Energy (Financing) Bill (Second sitting)

Alun Cairns Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 16th November 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Anthony Browne]

Okay. That is all my questions, thank you.

[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

Q This is a question just for Mr Woods—sorry—because of the small modular reactor interest. The benefits of RAB for the industry and for traditional build are quite obvious, but there are still risks. There is a risk in construction, and therefore costing that risk and building it into the RAB financing is a challenge. We were given evidence this morning by those who believe that a fleet will mean that things de-risk as we go along. There is, at least, a concept, and there is a proven record of design that works, but that is not necessarily the case with SMR. I am playing devil’s advocate. I can see that RAB would be extremely attractive to SMR going forward, but we are still at the concept stage, rather than having proof that it works in the way that we all hope it will.

Alan Woods: Let me break that down in terms of the proven part. Our design and our plant use proven technology. At the base of the reactor island, there is a pressurised water reactor. It is the same as what Rolls-Royce has designed, built and operated for the past 60 years in the submarine programme. We do not have the same set of requirements as the submarine programme, but it is the same core technology. Is it proven? Yes, it is absolutely proven. We know it works and that we can build it. We are building them today.

The rest of the turbine island plant is designed to use products that are already available in the market today. We are not designing a power plant that requires us to invent a specialist product here or a specialist product there and that has never been made before. It is designed to use products that exist in the market. Even though it is a steam turbine, it is a commodity product we can buy. All the constituent parts at our plant are proven technology. Our civil module approach has been proven by our partner, Laing O’Rourke, which is making modules of this nature today at Worksop. We will expand that facility to replicate and grow that module manufacturing capacity. The constituent parts are all proven. There is no technology innovation at the plant that is questionable as to whether it will reach the right technology-readiness level.

Then we come to our ability to manufacture and join the modules together. Again, this is not a technology challenge. It becomes more of a logistical challenge and there is plenty of evidence in other industries—in fact, inside Rolls-Royce—where we manage those logistics from the supply chain to the module facilities to the delivery to site and to the installation and commissioning of them.

I do not accept that we are not proven technology; we absolutely are. As I said, we have built into the design, intentionally from the outset, technologies and features that remove the risks associated with traditional construction. It is no longer a very large construction project; it is a factory of products. For example, when we build the power plant, we assembly the modules on site where an average of 500 people are assembling the parts. We do that to move those jobs into the module facilities and the supply chain and into the factory environment where we are manufacturing the same products over and over again in a production line environment.

[Alun Cairns]

Thank you.

[The Chair]

Do any of the other witnesses want to answer the question?

Chris Ball: There are two aspects to the question. First is the one about proven technology, which Alan has covered. Secondly, there is taking the lessons learned and leveraging the skills and capability within the UK nuclear industry. If we look at Hinkley Point C from unit 1 to unit 2, we see broadly in the order of a 20% reduction in time scales and costs as we take the lessons from unit 1 on to unit 2. Clearly, if we carry on with that same trajectory at Sizewell C, it will be 40%. I am not suggesting that it would necessarily get to 40% but one would assume it would be in excess of 20%. That is a benefit. Going back to the RAB model, leveraging the experience of Hinkley Point C affords good protection against the risks of cost and schedule overrun. Equally, leveraging those lessons into the SMR programme and from the skills and capability that have been built up on existing nuclear programmes is the benefit from all programmes.

My big fear for us as an organisation, which has several thousand engineers in the UK, is that disruption to workflow means that we lose the lessons learned from the industry. That is not to the benefit of the UK, job creation and the cost of our energy.