Viaro Energy (“Viaro”), the independent British energy company operating in the UK and the Netherlands North Sea, and Terrestrial Energy, a US technology company committed to delivering reliable, emission-free, and cost-competitive nuclear energy with a transformative advanced reactor, the Integral Molten Salt Reactor (“IMSR”), are pleased to announce a strategic partnership to develop an industry-leading IMSR project in the United Kingdom.
Viaro and Terrestrial Energy have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (“MoU”) to work collaboratively on the deployment of Terrestrial Energy’s IMSR plant technology for a broad range of potential industrial applications including powering data centres for AI. These applications currently rely on fossil fuels to drive energy-intensive processes, for which an IMSR plant offers a scalable, carbon-free replacement.
Viaro and Terrestrial Energy will collaborate to capture the commercial opportunities from fast growing demand for nuclear’s clean firm electric power and industrial heat. They will initially evaluate siting, regulatory, macro-economic and policy factors to confirm the viability of the project, before proceeding to identification of target sites, followed by detailed evaluation and site selection. The two companies intend to form a joint venture for the delivery of the IMSR plant project in the UK, with Viaro providing the infrastructure and investment for the deployment, and Terrestrial Energy leading the nuclear system development and procurement activities.
While the timelines for the project are dependent on various external factors, which will be assessed at agreed-upon milestones, the parties anticipate the project will reach a Final Investment Decision in 2030. An IMSR plant would create over 120 jobs when in operation, with many more during construction and in the plant supply chain.
“I am immensely pleased about the strategic partnership with Terrestrial Energy. We have now spent a year conducting market research of the different nuclear technology providers, and we believe Terrestrial Energy’s IMSR technology is among the most competitive ones currently out there,” said Francesco Mazzagatti, CEO of Viaro Energy. “The Terrestrial Energy team has successfully circumnavigated a lot of the production and supply chain challenges that other companies struggle with, such as fuel supply, and their experience in this sphere is impressive. Viaro has long stated its intentions to support the energy transition in a stable and strategic manner, and we continue to view safe nuclear energy as the most promising response to addressing climate change.”
“Viaro and Terrestrial Energy share a strategic vision that a large expansion of nuclear energy supply is required to achieve energy security and net-zero emission goals and that small and modular power plants employing advanced Generation IV technologies, such as IMSR can lead this expansion,” said Simon Irish, CEO of Terrestrial Energy. “Viaro has been successfully growing its market footprint in a core industrial sector while embracing the need for the energy transition, and we are excited about the potential that this partnership holds. With this MoU, we will work together on a project to select a site and an industrial application, which when completed would benchmark the capabilities of our IMSR plant and its potential for many other sites and applications.”
In August 2023, Terrestrial Energy signed a contract with Springfields Fuels Limited, a subsidiary of Westinghouse, for the design and construction of an IMSR fuel pilot plant. The Springfields nuclear fuel manufacturing site in Preston, United Kingdom has extensive infrastructure available to support the fuel supply for IMSR development, and scalable to support a fleet of IMSR plants operating in the 2030s.
The IMSR plant uses Standard Assay Low-Enriched Uranium, enriched to below 5% uranium-235, rather than High Assay Low-Enriched Uranium enriched to 15 to 20% uranium-235. The former is used in conventional nuclear power plant fuel and is the only fuel available and transportable today for civilian reactor use and has international regulatory acceptance. Its use supports an early deployment path for IMSR plants across multiple markets, including providing clean, firm power for industrial and data center use in the US and European markets.