News

U-Battery agrees Memorandum of Cooperation with JAEA

19 May 2017

U-Battery is pleased to announce that on 18 May 2017, a Memorandum of Cooperation was agreed with the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) in the field of High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor (HTGR) technologies including design, materials and safety evaluation.

Steve Threlfall, General Manager, U-Battery comments:

“U-Battery is delighted to be collaborating with the JAEA. Both U-Battery and the JAEA recognise the importance of international cooperation and we’re looking forward to working together to further develop U-Battery’s potential to support energy intensive industries and remote communities .”

The agreement is especially timely as the JAEA has also recently started cooperation with the National Centre for Nuclear Research (NCBJ) in Poland. In May 2016, an agreement was reached between U-Battery and NCBJ to proceed with the deployment of U-Battery and, in the event that the NCBJ introduces a demonstration HTGR from Urenco, the Japanese HTGR technologies are expected to be used in the demonstration reactor.

Kazuhiko Kunitomi, Director General, JAEA comments:

“We realise the importance of our collaboration with U-Battery and also the NCBJ to facilitate domestic R&D for early practical realisation of HTGRs. It is important to us that we are able to contribute in the development of commercially viable reactor technologies which could be used for new applications.”

U-Battery is a high temperature gas micro modular nuclear reactor which will be able to produce local power and heat for a range of energy needs. It is being developed by Urenco, Amec Foster Wheeler, Laing O’Rourke and Cammell Laird.