£1.1bn of works included in Great British Nuclear’s SMR project pipeline

GBN is the government body running the competition for selecting SMRs to receive taxpayer support for deployment. The competition is now down to its four finalists with a decision expected to come before the end of the year.

The body published its Great British Nuclear Commercial Pipeline document on 28 October 2028 which details five areas where, in total, it intends to spend up to £1.1bn on services needed for the delivery of its SMR program.

The five contracts are; owner’s engineer (OE), project delivery partner, foundation engineering capability, civils/infrastructure and foundation project management and commercial capability.

Civils and infrastructure alone has an estimated contract value of £200M.

Project delivery partner

The highest value area is for the project delivery partner, with an estimated value of £600M to £800M.

GBN said it estimated the contract length for a project delivery partner to be 10 years, “subject to final scoping and phasing” and said the contract “may be let in stages.”

It said the estimated procurement start date is 1 July 2025 and the contract commencement date is 1 September 2026.

The document says the project delivery partner “is required to provide project delivery and integration capability to the Small Modular Reactor (SMR) project, including all sub-projects”.

The commercial pipeline went on to say: “Whilst the scope of the Delivery Partner role is under development, it may include (but is not limited to); delivery and technical integration, co-ordination, interface management, management of project baselines (including change control), procurement and commercial management, PMO services and construction and design management throughout the project delivery lifecycle.

“As the overall programme model, scope and schedule is being determined, GBN have yet to finalise the contract duration to be proposed for this package.

“Therefore this may be a continuous contract to COD [cash on delivery] or a multi part/stage contract, for example a two-stage contract – Phase 1 covering Design & Organisational development and then instruction to proceed with a Phase 2 covering Construction and Commissioning, or a contract for a shorter duration with option to extend in phases up to achievement of commercial operations.

“One Delivery Partner is anticipated to be appointed for each SMR Project to work alongside the relevant Technology Partner for the deployment of their SMR technology.”

Owner’s engineer

The OE contract is listed as having an estimated value of £30M to £50M, lasting 10 years, and the planned procurement sourcing route said: “Open: plan for one competition to account two suppliers with call-off contracts”, strongly implying that there would be two SMR designs approved and taken forward at the end of the GBN competition.

GBN said the scope for the OE contract was to “provide subject matter expertise for independent assurance/representation of GBN (Great British Nuclear)/Development Company (DevCo) in relation to the delivery of the SMR Project(s).

“This will include technical and project assurance to GBN/DevCo in its role as an enduring Intelligent Client in the immediate term, and stand-up of Independent Nuclear Oversight of GBN/DevCo Core Safety Capability when required.”

Foundation engineering capability

The requirement for a foundation delivery capability is estimated to have a value of £30M to £40M, with the procurement start date being 3 March 2025 and the contract commencement date estimated as 18 August 2025, and total project time estimated to be three years.

In its description of the foundation engineering capability, GBN said: “Front End Engineering Design to include feasibility and optioneering design, engineering and construction planning activities, delivery of survey and investigation work in support of consent planning, and initial concept design activities.”

It said this may include activities in support of interpretation and application of archeaological, ecological and ground survey work, safety case strategy development, associated development, construction planning, enabling works design, site layout planning, logistics and transport planning.

GBN also said the contract value range would be “heavily dependent upon site location and infrastructure needs”.

Civils/infrastructure

Details about civils and infrastructure work were very limited. It said it needed balance of plant covering manufacture, supply and installation.

The contract is estimated to be £200M, taking approximately five years, with an estimated procurement start date of 1 January 2028 and estimated contract commence date of 1 January 2030.

Foundation project management and commercial capability

The estimated value of its foundation project management and commercial capability contract is £10M to £15M, lasting 1.5 years, and with an estimated procurement start date of 24 February 2025.

It estimated that contract commencement would be 11 August 2025.

GBN said it had already selected Crown Commercial Services to supply the planned procurement sourcing route, and named ‘Construction Professional Services’ under the contracts ‘Framework/DPS name’.

It described the scope of the contract as providing “interim project delivery support capapbility to support GBN and DevCo with the early management of the technology partner contract and intregation of additional scope and procurements ahead of the mobilisation of a main delivery partner.”

SMR Competition

The four finalists in the SMR competition are GE-Hitachi, Holtec Britain, Rolls-Royce SMR and Westinghouse Electric Co., which were chosen following the initial tender phase.

NuScale did not make it past the initial tender phase, while EDF exited the competition in July when it failed to submit documents before the deadline.

The four remaining bidders now enter the next stage of the procurement process, where they are invited to enter negotiations with GBN for contracts.

It is expected that one or two finalists will be announced by GBN before the end of 2024.

The winning bidder – or bidders – will be backed by the government with two-stage design, development and construction contracts to deploy their SMRs in the UK.

Firms that are not successful in the GBN competition can still deploy their SMR technology in the UK privately.

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