Plans for small modular reactor nuclear plant in South Wales take step forward

Plans for a pioneering small modular reactor nuclear power plant project in the Llynfi Valley have been boosted with its backers formally entering into a site licence approval process. US firm Last Energy last October first revealed plans for four 20 megawatt electric microreactors at the site of the former coal-powered Llynfi Power Station in Bridgend, which closed in 1977.

If delivered the Washington-based company said the site, which it has already acquired, would generate 24/7 clean energy the equivalent of the annual power needs of 244,000 homes.

It has now formally entered into a site licensing process with the UK’s nuclear regulator the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR).

The project now becomes the first new site for a commercial nuclear power reactor to enter licensing since the Torness Nuclear Power Station in Scotland in 1978. All UK deployments since then have been on, or adjacent to, sites with existing or former nuclear plants.

If signed off, subject to planning and licensing consent, Last Energy would deliver the project’s four SMRs with private finance.

Last month it secured a letter of intent for around £81m in debt funding from the Export-Import Bank of the United States. It said: "EXIM’s letter of intent gives us one pathway to project financing for the first unit, and delivery of that first unit will be critical momentum to develop