US firm sells 24 micro modular nuclear power plants to UK and 10 units to Poland

Good news! Mini nuclear power plants are taking off! The future of nuclear power! Going away from traditional custom design to modular industry standard design.

These micro nuclear power plants als generate substantial amounts of thermal energy!

The tree hugging banana republic of Germany should take note! The insane preoccupation with climate change and the hostility towards nuclear power in this country is truly scary!

The Last Energy company website makes quite some impressive claims:

1. "Fully modular, factory made"
2. "20 MWe POWER OUTPUT [per unit] A scalable solution"
3. "<24 mo SPEED TO DELIVER Completely modular design. All components are factory built and tested before integration inside of standardized modules. Once on site, modules are quickly connected and commissioned, minimizing construction activities."
4. "Operating supply chain. Our design uses industry standard equipment from nuclear and thermal power plants, ensuring component availability, operational experience, and cost competitiveness."
5. "0.5 acre PLANT FOOTPRINT FITS WITHIN A FOOTBALL FIELD. Near universal siting. Our air cooled facility and small footprint enable deployment across a variety of site conditions with minimal water access."
6. "CAPACITY FACTOR. 95% uptime, 72 month fuel cycle, <3 month refueling period"
7. "COOLING. Closed cycle air cooling for tertiary loop, <8 gpm water use"

"A US-based developer of small nuclear reactors has signed a deal to sell 24 of its power plants to UK customers, putting pressure on rival makers including Rolls-Royce.

Last Energy said the £100m modular units, which are two-thirds the size of a football pitch, can output 20MW of electricity, enough to power 40,000 homes. They will be deployed in 2026 with no government funding required.

Several companies are developing small, factory-made nuclear power plants. It is hoped that making smaller units will lead to lower prices through “economies of scale”, by spreading the cost of development over many units.

For heavy energy users with 24-hour operations like steel mills and data centres, nuclear power is attractive because it consistently provides power, compared to wind and solar generation. ..."

"Last Energy, a U.S.-based micro modular nuclear technology firm and project developer, has secured power purchase agreements (PPAs) for 34 PWR-20 small modular reactor (SMR) units with four industrial partners in the UK and Poland. The deals, which represent a combined $18.9 in power sales, mark “the largest pipeline of new nuclear power plants under development in the world,” Last Energy said.

The Washington D.C.-based company on March 22 said it signed PPAs for 10 20-MWe plants with Katowice Special Economic Zone (KSSE), a 1997-established special economic zone in southwestern Poland that hosts 540 companies. “The agreement represents over USD $4.3 billion in electricity sales over the lifetime of the contract and USD $1 billion  in inward energy and infrastructure investment in the zone,” the company noted. The first of the 10 plants supplying power to KSSE could be commissioned in 2026, it said."

US firm agrees to sell 24 mini nuclear reactors to UK customers (behind paywall, here is another link) The American company’s direct route to market negates the need for government subsidy

Last Energy Secures PPAs for 34 SMR Nuclear Power Plants in Poland and the UK