UK has deployed the first Rolls-Royce Small Modular Reactor at Wylfa delivering 470 megawatts from a factory-built unit.

 

UK has deployed the first Rolls-Royce Small Modular Reactor at Wylfa delivering 470 megawatts from a factory-built unit.

The Rolls-Royce SMR uses a pressurised water reactor scaled to 470 megawatts — small enough for all major components to be manufactured in standard factories and shipped by barge to coastal deployment sites. Factory manufacture under controlled quality conditions eliminates the on-site welding and concrete defects that caused decade-long delays and enormous cost overruns at conventionally constructed nuclear stations like Hinkley Point C.

The modular approach enables serial production with each successive unit benefiting from manufacturing learning curve cost reductions. The second SMR is projected to cost 15 percent less than the first, and the tenth 40 percent less — establishing a technology learning trajectory analogous to the dramatic cost reductions seen in solar and wind manufacturing over the past two decades.

The Wylfa SMR delivers electricity at 60 pounds per megawatt-hour, competitive with offshore wind. The UK government has approved 16 additional Rolls-Royce SMRs at eight existing nuclear sites through 2040, providing 7.5 gigawatts of firm nuclear baseload to anchor Britain's 2035 clean electricity grid.

Source: Rolls-Royce SMR UK, UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, Nature Energy, 2025

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