Opportunities for Overseas Businesses in Civil Nuclear in the Northern Powerhouse

The UK’s drive for ‘net zero’ carbon emissions and the need to level up the economy in the North are creating real opportunities for businesses in the civil nuclear sector. The recent announcements of funding for advanced civil nuclear innovation into organisations in the Northern Powerhouse reinforces the region's position.  

Last month, I held a series of webinars bringing together key players in the energy sector in the North of England to speak to overseas businesses wanting to find out more about these opportunities. 

The North of England, the region known as the Northern Powerhouse, is the home of the UK’s civil nuclear industry, and presents opportunities for overseas businesses to expand and thrive, collaborating with the many other businesses and world-leading facilities and bodies in the region, and supported by the UK government’s ‘net zero’ objective.

In the first event, I was joined by Rebecca Weston, Chief Operating Officer at Sellafield Ltd, Board Member of the Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership and Chair of the North West Nuclear Arc; and Lindsay Roche, Head of Government Affairs at Westinghouse, to discuss opportunities in the Civil Nuclear sector.

It’s important for businesses in this vast and wide-ranging sector to be part of a strong and supportive ecosystem, and both Rebecca and Lindsay underlined just how well this is delivered within the North of England’s civil nuclear ecosystem, the ‘North West Nuclear Arc’.  

The North West Nuclear Arc (NWNA) describes a crescent-shaped cluster of nuclear businesses and facilities in the region. Dr Rebecca Weston chairs the group of businesses and organisations who come together under this collaborative industry umbrella. She highlighted the extent of the arc within the geography of the region and the assets sited right across it, but pointed out that it’s not just about businesses and facilities (of which we have many) but also about the skills. This relatively small geographic area contains 58,000 civil nuclear jobs (including 3,000 apprentices and 44% of the UK’s nuclear researchers). 

All aspects of the nuclear lifecycle (except mining) can be covered in a short 3-hour drive. The Northern Powerhouse cluster spans the whole fuel cycle from enrichment to decommissioning to operation, and recycling of the fuels themselves as well. Furthermore, the North is becoming a focal point for the advanced technologies that support the industry. 

Where are the opportunities?

As well as being historically the home of civil nuclear in the UK (Rutherford split the atom in Manchester, and the first commercial nuclear station was opened here at Calderhall in 1956), its future here also looks very bright. The concentration of skills and businesses with supply chain needs across the Northern Powerhouse and in particular the NWNA form the basis for a healthy future pipeline of opportunities. 

Any new build programme will comprise waste processing, management, and decommissioning elements. In fact, more than 50% of investment in NWNA is related to decommissioning and waste management challenges

The Sellafield site presents opportunities for overseas businesses wishing to expand – especially in decommissioning and R&D.

Opportunities at Sellafield 

Sellafield is a large nuclear site on the NW coast of England. It covers 6 square km, is home to 200 nuclear facilities, 11,000 employees, 24,000 supply chain jobs and is the 3rd largest construction site in the UK.

Sellafield’s diverse portfolio includes Decommissioning, Reprocessing, Spent Fuel Management, Nuclear Waste Management and Nuclear Material Management. Since May 2019 the Programme and Project Partnership sees Sellafield working with four companies on a long term (20 year) relationship to deliver projects at the site. 

There are many opportunities in the years ahead – we are just at the start. As Rebecca stated: “The pipeline is with us for a number of decades, so the investment opportunities are many and varied.”

This is particularly the case with Research and Development, where Rebecca said: “The research and development needs remain huge.”

Sellafield has identified a set of ‘Grand challenges’ which include R&D into a ‘non human’ toolset which would help to minimise risk; Intelligent, self-managing, sustainable infrastructure; Waste minimisation; and Digital delivery tools. 

Lindsay Roche, Head of Government Affairs at Westinghouse stated that the UK is an important market for the company. She also stressed the importance of the local ecosystem in the North. 

Westinghouse supplies fuel and field services to operating reactors throughout the world as well as providing decommissioning services and solutions to the nuclear decontamination and decommissioning sector.  The company has an office in W Cumbria  from where it delivers R&D work at the heart of Sellafield to reduce risk and hazard at the site. Its Springfield Fuels Ltd site in Lancashire at the centre of the NWNA extends over 200 acres and has over 800 staff. It is one of the world’s leading fuel fabrication facilities and manufactures fuel for all the AGR reactors in the UK and exports PWR fuel to overseas customers. Lindsay told us that, “32% of the UK’s low carbon electricity comes from fuel manufactured in our plant at Springfields.”

Nuclear energy has a vital role to play in delivering baseload power generation to support the government’s target to achieve Net Zero by 2050 and Springfields has an important role to play in delivering fuel for the next generation of advanced reactors, bringing energy security and regional economic benefit including high skilled jobs and supply chain opportunities.

At the Springfields site, they focus keenly on R&D for next generation fuels, including accident tolerant fuels and fuel for advanced reactors. The company was recently awarded ￡10m for development of a lead-cooled fast reactor – in the BEIS Advanced Modular Reactor (AMR) competition with work being undertaken at Springfields and other supply chain partners within the North West Nuclear Arc

Lindsay stated that the company’s success in the UK was, “All made possible because of the North West Nuclear Arc ecosystem”. 

It’s easy to see why. Their location, easily accessible to and from the National Nuclear Laboratory and the University of Manchester’s Dalton Nuclear Institute (a research facility focused on advanced fuels), makes collaboration simple. Westinghouse works closely with the Urenco enrichment facility near Chester, on fuels to support the next generation of reactors, and with the Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Centre (NAMRC) near Sheffield, working on advanced manufacturing methods to increase capability and productivity for the supply of manufactured components.

Opportunities for Overseas businesses at the Springfields Clean Energy Technology Park

With availability of land for development on Westinghouse’s Springfields site, and with the UK government’s support, they launched the Clean Energy Technology Park earlier in 2020. Lindsay described the opportunity this presents: 

“This is a nuclear licenced site with a broad range of environmental permits and we can take advantage of this unique world class facility, with accessed to highly skilled workforce, and transition the site and support the next generation of advanced reactors.”

Westinghouse is creating a collaboration hub at the site where technology providers can co-locate and collaborate, with access to the existing facilities and people, and work together to accelerate the development and commercialisation of their own nuclear technology. 

The companies which will benefit are those seeking to develop technologies such as high temperature gas reactors, lead-cooled fast reactors, micro-reactors, molten salt reactors, and the associated advanced fuel development for these technologies. 

The facilities are also suitable for companies developing and testing novel coolants utilised by advanced reactors, and there are facilities for the clean-up of contaminated materials, with Westinghouse having the capability to create bespoke facilities for partners.

Lindsay stated that Westinghouse is keen to reach out to international businesses to get involved:

“We are keen to collaborate internationally; we do think there are opportunities for joint partnerships with technology developers and national laboratories to coordinate research and development activities to support the development, demonstration and commercialisation of advanced nuclear technologies.”

There is also a strong link with developments at Westinghouse and the broader clean energy narrative, with the company keen to explore links between nuclear and hydrogen, where nuclear can provide that reliable base load source of electricity to support the production of hydrogen. This helps advance the decarbonisation of the UK’s networks and transport networks. 

The wider energy landscape of the North 

While the phrase, ‘Northern Powerhouse’ was coined to embody the ambition of the region to combine its cities’ separate strengths, when it comes to the energy industry, the region truly is a force to be reckoned with. The North will be instrumental in helping the UK deliver on its net zero carbon target by 2050.

I have already mentioned that the North is the home of UK civil nuclear, and overseas companies joining the strong network of the NWNA are assured a warm Northern welcome.

The region is also world leading in offshore wind, when it comes to size, scale and value, and it leads the UK in hydrogen technologies and deployment. Over 30% of UK renewable electricity is generated in the region (through a mix of Waste to Energy, Offshore Wind, PV (solar), Nuclear and other technologies), and 5 out of 10 of the energy network operators are based here. 

There are commercial opportunities throughout the North’s energy ecosystem, in conventional approaches to energy generation transmission and distribution, energy efficiency and consumption, and also in new areas. Some of the most exciting developments are at the interfaces between power and heat, heat and transport, heat and power, and gas and electricity. Hydrogen, and decarbonising the heat network also present major opportunities.

Get in touch to find out more about the opportunities in energy, including in civil nuclear energy, in the North of England.