France-based Bureau Veritas has signed a collaboration agreement with Dutch company ULC-Energy to support deployment of the Rolls-Royce SMRs in the Netherlands. ULC-Energy is a nuclear energy development and consultancy company, and Bureau Veritas is a testing, inspection and certification services provider.
Through the new strategic partnership, the companies are combining their expertise to accelerate the energy transition by making Rolls-Royce’s standardised Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) available in the Netherlands on an industrial scale.
The Rolls-Royce SMR design is a three loop PWR with an output of 470 MWe derived from 1,358 MWt. The Rolls-Royce SMR concept is centred on modularisation of reliable and proven technology, allowing maximum use of the factory environment to combine standard components with advanced manufacturing techniques. The factory-built modularisation approach is expected to drastically reduce the amount of on-site construction while its compact footprint and modular design means it can be located alongside energy intensive industrial processes.
In August 2022, Rolls-Royce SMR signed an exclusive agreement with ULC-Energy to work together to deploy Rolls-Royce small modular reactor (SMR) power stations in the Netherlands. The Rolls-Royce SMR was selected by ULC-Energy as its SMR technology provider of choice. The following month ULC-Energy signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with US-based Constellation to support this deployment.
A year later, in November 2023 Netherlands-based ULC-Energy, Denmark’s Topsoe and the Rolls-Royce SMR signed an agreement to jointly investigate the production of hydrogen using Topsoe’s Solid Oxide Electrolysis Cell (SOEC) technology with power and heat produced by a Rolls-Royce SMR NPP.
ULC-Energy CEO Dirk Rabelink said he was delighted with the collaboration with Bureau Veritas. “Developing nuclear energy projects is a long-term process and stable, complementary and long-term collaborations are crucial to our success. Our collaboration with Bureau Veritas brings another highly capable and experienced party to our delivery model,” he noted.
“Having a serious partner such as ULC‑Energy, the exclusive Dutch development partner for Rolls‑Royce SMR, as a key account will support our pathway to decarbonise the Netherlands and to roll out further nuclear services nationally.” said Pim Reuderink, Regional Technical Manager of Bureau Veritas. “We are committed to leveraging our technical expertise to support ULC-Energy throughout all engineering and procurement phases of this SMR project.”
