The tumultuous events impacting the energy sector over the past year have highlighted the benefits of nuclear technology, according to Crawforth. This has accelerated the development of progressive nuclear technologies, in turn, causing a new wave of nuclear deployment across Europe.

And this new wave is largely dominated by small modular reactors or SMRs.

Unlike large nuclear which is often plagued by cost overruns and delays, SMRs can deliver the energy transition affordably and reliably.

It’s one part of the global renaissance of different nuclear technologies, such as fusion and advanced modular reactors, on the generation horizon.

A Level-1 trauma center in Staten Island, New York is adding a natural gas-fueled onsite cogeneration plant so the hospital can produce its own power.

Rolls-Royce is providing two combined cooling, heating and power (CCHP) trigeneration units for Richmond University Medical Center (RUMC). The system is expected to provide the hospital’s daily power needs, while generating steam for hot water, heating and air conditioning.

The project will begin powering the hospital in Fall 2022, hospital officials said.

Rated at 1.5 MW each, the CCHP units are to be housed in a former laundry facility adjacent to the hospital. The project is being managed by developer Innovative Energy Strategies (IES) and is part of RUMC’s multi-million dollar expansion.

While RUMC will remain connected to the grid, the cogeneration plant will allow it to become self-sufficient, especially during emergency situations. The hospital has recognized the need for an alternative power supply system following outages caused by Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

“Given that RUMC is the only hospital on Staten Island not in a flood zone, the ability to maximize hospital resilience by being energy self-sufficient was of major importance,” an RUMC spokesperson said.

Rolls-Royce Group, energy investor BNF Resources UK Limited and Exelon Generation Limited will invest £195 million ($265 million) over a period of about three years. This funding will enable the business to secure grant funding of £210 million ($285 million) from UK Research and Innovation funding.

The business will now proceed with a range of parallel delivery activities, including entry to the UK Generic Design Assessment (GDA) process and identifying sites for the factories which will manufacture the modules.

Discussions will continue with the UK Government on identifying the delivery models that will enable long-term investment and Rolls-Royce SMR will continue engaging with export customers who need this technology.

Warren East, Rolls-Royce CEO adds: “With the Rolls-Royce SMR technology, we have developed a clean energy solution which can deliver cost-competitive and scalable net-zero power for multiple applications from grid and industrial electricity production to hydrogen and synthetic fuel manufacturing.”

Tom Samson, CEO, Rolls-Royce SMR, added: “Rolls-Royce SMR has been established to deliver a low cost, deployable, scalable and investable program of new nuclear power plants…

“Investors see a tremendous opportunity to decarbonize the UK through stable baseload nuclear power, in addition to fulfilling a vital export need as countries identify nuclear as an opportunity to decarbonize.”

Read more: The role of small modular nuclear reactors in meeting climate goals

Rolls-Royce SMR nuclear technology includes a unique factory-made module manufacturing and on-site assembly system. Nine-tenths of an individual Rolls-Royce SMR power plant will be built or assembled in factory conditions and around 80% could be delivered via the UK supply chain.

A single Rolls-Royce SMR power station will occupy the footprint of two football pitches and power approximately one million homes.

It can support both on-grid electricity and a range of off-grid clean energy solutions, enabling the decarbonization of industrial processes and the production of clean fuels, such as sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) and green hydrogen.

Ralph Hunter, Chief Operating Officer of Exelon Nuclear Partners and Vice President of Exelon Generation commented: “We believe that small modular reactors could become a crucial part of the world’s clean energy mix and we are confident that, as an operational partner, we can help develop, deploy and operate a fleet of world-class SMRs.”