Small-modular reactors (SMRs) risk becoming a “distraction” from what should be the government’s main priority of replacing old coal and nuclear plants in the 2020s, Sir Ed Davey has told Utility Week.
SMRs are unlikely to be ready for deployment until the early 2030s, leaving “a serious question mark” over their value to policy makers, the former energy secretary said.
“To get this technology off the ground and running and deployed most people I have spoken to, either on or off the record, say we’ll be looking at the early 2030s,” said Davey.
“So many things are going to have changed by then there has to be a really serious question mark over whether these things will have any value at all to us given the decisions we’re going to have to take before then.”
He continued: “As an energy minister in government one’s got to be focused on what is achievable and SMRs have a danger of being a distraction.” To bet the UK’s energy future on them would be “highly irresponsible and risky”.
US firm NuScale has one of the furthest advanced small-modular reactor (SMR) designs. It applied for the American equivalent of a Generic Design Assessment (GDA) late last year.
The firm is planning to build the first plant in Idaho by 2024 and has previously told Utility Week it expects the levelised cost of energy for its reactors to be competitive with combined-cycle gas turbines.
Davey said he was unable to comment directly on such claims but observed that the nuclear industry has touted low generation costs for “the last six decades”.
“They claimed it would come in at low cost and it never has done.” He said SMR developers should provide some “hard evidence” on costs before policy makers give them any serious backing.
The government launched the first stage of a competition to find the “best value” SMR design for the UK in March last year. The results and a roadmap for SMRs were due to be published over the autumn but have yet to materialise.
Davey said he has no issue with the government doing research to gain more evidence but said this shouldn’t be a priority. He said the main focus for research should instead be the storage technologies which will enable greater deployment of intermittent renewable generation. “The advance in storage is massive and its being deployed now,” he added.
Davey served as energy secretary for nearly three years between 2012 and 2015 and is now the chairman of community energy company Mongoose Energy.