Michał Sołowow’s consortium has announced plans to build 14 small modular reactors in the UK, backed by £35bn of private capital and pitched as enough to power the equivalent of 8m homes for more than 60 years. The rollout is tied to three sites and a target of starting electricity generation in 2034.
The plan is the latest step in small modular reactors in the UK, with Sołowow describing the government framework as “a clear path to market.” He also said the UK is “home to one of the world’s most experienced nuclear workforces.”
Sołowow and the UK rollout
Sołowow, a billionaire industrialist and rally driver, is leading SGE’s push with industrial partners GE Vernova and Hitachi. The reactors are 300 megawatt boiling water reactors using the BWRX-300 design, and SGE plans to invest between £2.2bn and £2.5bn in each unit.
The financing structure is built around private capital first, with the consortium saying it also wants a government support contract for a competitive electricity price once generation begins. Under the contracts for difference scheme, the project would be paid a fixed rate from energy bills after it starts producing power.
Oldbury and three sites
The consortium hopes to secure three sites by this time next year, and understands it has submitted an application to use the Oldbury site in south Gloucestershire. That leaves the rollout plan ahead of the location decisions that will determine where construction actually starts.
The Labour government has already set out plans for a historic expansion in nuclear power across England and Wales, while Keir Starmer has called for tech companies to work alongside the government to build SMRs for energy-intensive AI datacentres across Britain. Sołowow has also said Google Cloud will be part of the joint venture signed this week in London, and that it may partner on investing up to £4.5bn in datacentres to use the nuclear output.
Rolls-Royce competition
The project puts SGE in competition with Rolls-Royce to be first to roll out SMRs in the UK. Rolls-Royce won a government competition earlier this year to start generating power by 2032 at the earliest, giving the field a separate deadline before Sołowow’s 2034 target.
For the consortium, the immediate test is not the reactor design but the delivery chain: sites, operator and financing still have to line up around the 14-reactor plan. The open question is which three UK sites will host the reactors and who will operate them.
