Not earlier than 2030
Rolls-Royce Holdings UK is in talks with Ukraine's largest private energy company about building a number of mini-nuclear power plants in the country.
As reported by The Telegraph, DTEK, part of the industrial group of billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, held negotiations with a firm from the FTSE 100 list on the development of small modular reactors (SMRs) at facilities that are currently currently operated by coal-fired power plants.
Maxim Timchenko, the company's CEO, expects nuclear power to become an important part of DTEK's future portfolio as Ukraine recovers and transitions away from fossil fuels.
DTEK and Rolls-Royce are exploring the possibility of converting up to eight existing coal-fired power plants for the construction of SMRs in the 2030s.
Previously it became known that by 2050 the United Kingdom plans to produce 16 small modular reactors. In this case, the components of the SMR are supposed to be produced at factories and then delivered by vehicles to the assembly site, which will reduce construction costs. The service life of such mini-nuclear power plants will be about 60 years, and the power of each of them will be equal to 440 MW.
The first such new generation reactor is planned to be built by 2030. Its cost will be about $2.9 billion.