As reported in the UK Government’s website (here), Holtec International and EDF UK have resolved to work together to develop Holtec’s SMR-300 small modular reactors at the former Cottam coal-fired power station in Nottinghamshire, in order to provide clean, secure power to new, advanced data centers on the site. This intent is formalized through a Memorandum of Understanding signed between Holtec, EDF and their real estate partner Tritax.
The announcement, made ahead of the State Visit of President Donald Trump to the UK, signals a landmark transatlantic cooperation in delivering clean energy and digital innovation. The project could transform one of the UK’s historic “Megawatt Valley” sites into a hub for clean energy and new investment opportunities, whilst demonstrating the benefits of U.S.-UK collaboration in advanced nuclear technologies.
The 900-acre Cottam site offers an unparalleled location, with grid connections and critical infrastructure that will significantly reduce development costs and timelines. This project could create thousands of highly skilled manufacturing and construction jobs, as well as long-term roles in operations to the benefit of the local community. The project will also enable foreign direct investment into the UK, including into nuclear fuel fabrication and services by Framatome and turbine manufacture by Arabelle Solutions.
The UK program will benefit directly from Holtec’s SMR-300 deployment at Palisades, Michigan which is slated to be the first SMR-300 plant to be commissioned in the U.S. As a second-of-a-kind deployment, the UK project will benefit from lessons already learned, to reduce risk and accelerate deployment. Holtec is already advancing the SMR-300 design in close collaboration with UK regulators, paving the way for greater regulatory alignment between the U.S. and UK.
Feasibility studies and early-stage investment discussions are now underway, with Holtec and EDF engaged with relevant parties within UK and U.S. governments, including Great British Energy – Nuclear and The National Wealth Fund. The one-Gigawatt data center project for Cottam is expected to come online this decade which would form part of the Trent Valley Supercluster, submitted as an AI Growth Zone to the UK Government. The SMRs would be operational in the early-2030s.
This EDF (UK)/Holtec compact is a natural evolution of a close business relationship between the two companies that dates to the mid-1990s during which period Holtec has provided safety-focused innovative technologies and a slew of equipment for the Sizewell B plant’s wet and dry fuel storage facilities. Working together, EDF (UK) and Holtec introduced industry’s safest fuel storage canisters at Sizewell B. The Storage casks are also mega-shielded making their accreted radiation dose to the environment vanishingly small.. The depth of the business relationship between the two companies is best indicated by the fact Holtec’s delivery of goods and services to EDF (UK) at the Sizewell and Hinkley Point C sites over the life of UK’s reactors is expected to top a billion dollars.
The SMR-300 reactor, developed by Holtec over the past 14 years, is in the tradition of Holtec’s intense focus on public health and safety. Installed as a pair, two SMR-300 reactors will together generate over 680 MW of baseload electric power. Each two-unit reactor set will occupy less than 30 acres. Thus, at the 900-acre Cottam site, several additional sets of SMR-300s can be installed with ample land left for installing data centers.
The SMR-300s on the bank of a river (River Trent), would be the first for Britain. In this respect, Holtec’s extensive experience in the design and construction of numerous river-side nuclear installations would be valuable. With the unconditionally safe SMR-300s installed, the land once known as the Megawatt Valley, will reclaim its proud moniker celebrating the rise of the Midlands as the shining citadel of Great Britain’s clean energy generation and an incubator of thousands of well-paying jobs in the region to energize its economy.
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