Bloomberg Learns About London's Plans to Launch Large-Scale Nuclear Program

From 2030, the UK plans to increase its carbon-free energy production many times over through the construction of small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) and the launch of large nuclear power plants (NPPs), writesBLOOMBERG .

No new nuclear power plants have been opened in the country since 1995, and most of the operating ones are expected to be decommissioned by the beginning of the next decade, the agency notes.

The construction of SMR in the country will be supervised by the state company Great British Energy — Nuclear (GBE-N), created specifically for this purpose. The contractor for the first project will be the Rolls-Royce corporation. The contract with it will be signed by the end of the year, by which time the site for the first reactor of the new type will be allocated, the British government website says.

Small modular reactors (SMRs) were developed for military purposes in the 1950s to power submarines and nuclear-powered ships. Commercial SMRs are designed to provide electrical power outputs of 5 MW to 300 MW per module. They could be a safer, cheaper alternative to traditional power plants. Tech companies are showing interest in using them to power their data centers.

The Cabinet will spend more than £2.5 billion on the SMR programme , which it hopes will create up to 3,000 jobs and provide cheap electricity to around 3 million households once the first reactors are connected to the national grid in the mid-2030s.

The large Sizewell C reactor in Suffolk, eastern England, is also expected to come on stream at the same time. The UK government gave final approval to the investment project in July 2025, nine years after work began on it.

According to a government press release, the new nuclear power plant will provide "cheap, clean electricity for generations of British families for at least six decades."

The state is planning to build the station together with private companies, which makes its project 20% cheaper than another nuclear “long-term construction project” in the country – Hinkley Point C.

Preparations for the site for the nuclear power plant in Somerset, southwest England, began in 2008. Since then, construction has been interrupted several times due to the pandemiccovid-19 and Brexit, which led to significant budget overruns.

Now EDF Energy, which is funding the project, plans to commission the first unit of the plant in 2029–2031.

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