The creation of NUWARD, a new subsidiary, highlights EDF’s willingness to strengthen the development of its NUWARD™ Small Modular Reactor (SMR). In line with its objective to achieve First Nuclear Concrete in 2030 for its reference plant in France, after finalizing the conceptual design phase of the project, NUWARD now shifts to the basic design phase with the support of EDF Group and its partners.
 
NUWARD™ is set to become the European leader in Small Modular Reactor technology, delivering low carbon, reliable and affordable energy to the world’s market.

NUWARD™ SMR conceptual design phase consolidated the design architecture of the NUWARD™ SMR. NUWARD will now proceed with the basic design activities to progress design maturity, leveraging the expertise and experience of EDF Group’s nuclear engineering teams, while also benefitting from the support of an international network of industrial partners.           

In accordance with the French nuclear licensing process, the Design and Safety options file (DOS) is scheduled to be submitted to the French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) in July 2023. NUWARD will also engage with the French state’s authorities to assess and select possible sites for the reference plant in France. Together with EDF, NUWARD will further pursue development of cooperation arrangements and commitments with international prospects who are considering deploying the NUWARD™ SMR as part of their energy transition or who aspire to join the NUWARD™ SMR supply chain.

To make this happen, the NUWARD subsidiary workforce is expected to ramp up to approximately 150 employees in the core team by 2024 while the total workforce contributing to the development of the NUWARD™ SMR technology is expected to grow to more than 600 highly skilled engineers and experts, including EDF Group and partners’ staff contributing to the project.

The NUWARD subsidiary will continue to work with NUWARD™’s historic partners (CEA, TechnicAtome, Naval Group) and new partners onboarded last year: Framatome and Tractebel.

Renaud Crassous, NUWARD’s President said: “The establishment of the NUWARD subsidiary will give a powerful boost to our product development. We will fully integrate the SMR catalysts for success, i.e. innovation, modularisation, standardisation and series production. We are committed to increasing the speed of execution to deliver the NUWARD™ SMR design on time to meet market expectations for first nuclear concrete as early as 2030. We leap enthusiastically with both feet into the basic design phase, together with our partners who bring a unique breadth of skills!”. 

Xavier Ursat, EDF Group Senior Executive in charge of Engineering and New Nuclear Projects Division, commented: “NUWARD, a wholly-owned subsidiary of EDF, has been established to serve our ambition for an accelerated technology development: fully embedded within the EDF Group, NUWARD company is a key enabler for a time-to-market product, providing the agility and speed required to meet the next key milestones. As such it will keep benefiting from the Group’s long expertise and experience in design, construction, and operation of nuclear power plants.”

The NUWARD™ SMR is targeted to replace old high CO2-emitting coal, fuel, oil and gas power plants around the world as well as offering the capability of supporting other usages such as hydrogen production, urban and district heating or desalination. Based on proven PWR technology, it is a 340MWe plant with two reactors of 170MWe each. Led by the NUWARD subsidiary, the project relies on the skilled and valued contributions of EDF, CEA, Naval Group, TechnicAtome, Framatome and Tractebel. More information on www.nuward.com