 https://www.schwaebische.de/wirtschaft/rolls-royce-macht-deal-mit-vetter-pharma-3258491#google_vignetteRolls-Royce has received an order from Ravensburg-based pharmaceutical service provider Vetter to supply MTU Kinetic Power Packs. (Photo: Rolls-Royce Power Systems )Two successful companies in the region are working closely together. Rolls-Royce is helping Vetter Pharma to secure its energy supply.A deal for mutual benefit: Friedrichshafen-based engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce has received an order from Ravensburg-based pharmaceutical service provider Vetter to supply three MTU Kinetic Power Packs (KPP), as Rolls-Royce has now announced. The systems are intended to ensure a reliable power supply at the Vetter sites in Langenargen (Bodenseekreis) and Rankweil (Austria).The Kinetic Power Packs are used there primarily to safeguard processes in the clean rooms. The Langenargen site will receive two more KPPs, and Rankweil will receive another system. They are expected to be put into operation in early summer and summer 2025, the two companies announced. The prices for such special systems "start in the six-figure range and go up into the millions," as a Rolls-Royce spokeswoman explained when asked by Schwaebische.de. However, she did not want to disclose the amount of the specific deal with Vetter.Vetter has been using MTU Power Packs since 2005The pharmaceutical service provider based in Ravensburg has been using the dynamic uninterruptible power supply systems from Rolls-Royce since 2005: Nine systems are currently in operation at various company locations, and two more are currently being installed. The group, which has production sites in Germany, Austria and the USA, specializes in filling medicines into injection systems. To ensure that this happens completely germ-free, Vetter secures its production processes with the uninterruptible power supply systems.The Kinetic Power Packs, manufactured in Liège (Belgium), combine a kinetic mass storage device, an MTU diesel engine and a generator, as Rolls-Royce explains. As long as the public power grid is running, the kinetic mass storage device - in this case a flywheel - is powered by the generator, which works as an electric motor in this operating state. |
Full article US nuclear upgrade could be blueprint for power stations in BritainHoltec says plans to re-power 50-year-old systems in Michigan can help it win the race to build the first small modular reactors in the UKEmma PowellDecember 09 2024, 12.01amOn the icy shores of Lake Michigan, Holtec is in the thick of inspecting and upgrading the 50-year old systems at the Palisades nuclear plant in an effort to bring the dormant reactor back to life before the end of this year.Yet Palisades 2.0 will not just be a restart of the 800 MW reactor, which was fully decommissioned in 2022, if the New Jersey-based company has its way. Plans are also being laid to build two mini-nuclear power stations, which could start delivering electricity by 2031, potentially putting Holtec among the first in the western world to deploy the next-generation plants.The company claims its plans to re-power the Palisades site can form the blueprint for its ambition to build the first small modular reactors (SMR) in Britain.Holtec is one of four ventures - alongside Rolls-Royce, GE Hitachi and Westinghouse - vying to win taxpayer funding for its nuclear design, the SMR-300, which has a capacity of 300MW , capable of powering about 300,000 homes. Great British Nuclear (GBN), the arm's-length body set up by the government to oversee the process, is due to announce the two winners this spring, who will build on one of the eight existing sites approved for nuclear development.Holtec's plans in Michigan could be an early test of whether SMRs, which are mainly factory built and assembled on site, can avoid the cost and time overruns that have blighted larger nuclear projects. Holtec, which was founded in the 1980s by Kris Singh, a design engineer, must also overcome several regulatory hurdles in the US and UK to make its plans for mini-nukes a reality.Kelly Trice, president of Holtec International, claims that if the company manages to deploy its pressurised water reactor in the US, it can reduce the cost of each unit, estimated at about $2 billion, by about 30 per cent by the time it comes to build in Britain."The UK would be the second of a kind, at least 30 per cent cheaper," he says.At the Palisades, government support has been critical to repowering an existing reactor for the first time in the US. In September the company secured a $1.5 billion federal loan alongside $300 million in financing from Michigan, which is aiming to decarbonise its grid by 2040 and cope with a sharp rise in demand for electricity from both consumers and industry. It has also signed a 20-year power purchase agreement with two co-operatives, set up decades ago to provide power to rural America.So far an area of just under three acres has been cleared at the Palisades for exploratory core and seismic boring for the SMRs, before a planning application is submitted next year amid a goal to break ground in 2027. Each unit will eventually span between 2.5 and four acres, the size of up to two football fields.Holtec's work on small to medium reactors at Palisades nuclear plant, Michigan, has been self-fundedBRANDON HATTILONEYLike its competitors, Holtec still has numerous regulatory barriers to overcome, with the American Nuclear Regulatory Commission yet to approve its design. In the UK it is in stage two of the Office for Nuclear Regulation's three-step generic design assessment process.Early work on mini-nukes at the Palisades has been self-funded, although Holtec has said it is in discussions with the same two not-for-profit suppliers over the power that could be provided by the SMRs, but no deals have yet been signed.In Britain, developers are competing only to provide the technology and oversee the construction before handing over the keys to licensed operators. Even beyond the competition, the company says it has no ambitions to run any of the SMRs it hopes to develop.A drive among big economies for cleaner sources of energy and the need to feed a new wave of power-hungry data centres has led to efforts to revive nuclear on both sides of the Atlantic. In October Amazon took a stake in X-energy to support the construction of 5 GW (gigawatts) of SMR-generated power by 2039, while Google has also ordered up to seven SMRs from Kairos Power, a California-based developer.In the US, technology companies are starting to compete with households for power in some areas, Trice said. "So that's what we're facing in the US, which I don't feel is far off in the UK," he added. The UK could need about 100 SMRs to eventually be developed over the coming decades to cope with demand and provide baseload power alongside renewables, Trice says bullishly.Yet progress in building the first mini-reactors has been slow, with developers reluctant to shoulder the increased risk and cost associated with producing "reactor one".The British SMR competition, which is designed to underwrite some of that risk, is part of efforts to revive nuclear power, which has dwindled to about 14 per cent of the UK's electricity mix, down from about a quarter in the late 1990s, and is set to fall further as all bar one of the country's existing plants come offline by March 2030.Building new nuclear power stations will be "essential" to decarbonising Britain's energy system, Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, has said, insisting that investing taxpayer money could deliver "big returns" for the country. The first small modular reactor is not expected to be generating electricity before 2035, too late to contribute towards Labour's 2030 net zero goals, which have become a central policy for the new government.Holtec says its main production facility in Camden, New Jersey, is already geared up to make SMRsBRANDON HATTILONEYLabour's focus on ramping up green power on the grid had not overshadowed nuclear development, Trice insists. "I would say that building wind and building solar is faster ... I still think all of it's needed. I just think nuclear is going to take a little longer to get there. And I think 2030 is a very aggressive goal."Trice argues that Holtec can sidestep the budget and timescale overruns that have blighted development of larger reactors, since mass factory production of a uniform design will eliminate changes that need to be made when SMRs are assembled in the field."If you can mass-produce, you'll follow the same manufacturing curve that everything else that mass-produces has done from the [Ford] Model A on," he says.Yet like peers, its design is untested and issues associated with developing new nuclear can be site-specific, analysts at Aurora Energy, the British consultancy, have previously suggested.The company also claims to have an edge in manufacturing, since its main production facility in Camden, New Jersey, is already kitted out with the heavy machinery needed to handle some of the fabrication processes needed for SMRs, including what it claims is the largest steel rolling machine in North America.The plant, located close to the now defunct shipyard of the New York Shipbuilding Corporation on the banks of the Delaware River, mainly produces dry storage canisters for spent nuclear fuel. It has become the US's largest exporter of decommissioning products, shipping globally, including to Sizewell B and Hinkley Point C in the UK.Yet production of the Palisades SMRs at the plant will be a first that would require some upgrades to machinery, which it estimates will cost about $150 million. It will also need to train more machinists, "a dying trade" among younger generations that means those specialised skills are harder to find, according to Tom Mosolovich, manager of advanced manufacturing projects at the site.Holtec has said it wants to replicate the Camden facility in the UK by building a £1.5 billion SMR production facility in South Yorkshire, which it says could create about 3,000 engineering jobs over the next 20 years.The company has been undeterred by the UK's high electricity prices and increase in taxes on employers, according to Rick Springman, president of Holtec's global clean energy opportunities division."Obviously it doesn't help your business costs," he acknowledges. "This type of factory ... it's not as sensitive to electricity prices as steel mills or extrusion facilities."As the competition process in Britain has slowly edged forward, Rolls-Royce, which was handed a £210 million grant by the government for design research, has been regarded as a frontrunner, a sentiment Trice agrees with."My personal opinion is we're both winning," he says, insisting that pressurised water reactor technology that is already deployed at a larger scale in the UK offers the best solution.However, Holtec would still consider building its South Yorkshire factory even if it does not win the GBN competition, Trice insists, which he says could act as a hub to export to Europe, though that would be "largely subject to the order book that we can build to build SMRs somewhere in that part of the world".It would also not spell the end of Holtec's ambitions to eventually deploy SMRs in Britain, according to Trice."Even if we don't win, it doesn't mean we're not going to participate because in the end, it's just an assistance to get a licence. You can get a licence without that assistance. It just costs money." |
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