Although, as in this case, if you string enough SMR's together you are no longer talking small.
(for reference, a 1000 MWe plant is pretty good size no matter what the fuel powering it is)
From Power Magazine:
Poland Secures NuScale SMR as Urgency for Nuclear Energy Ramps Up Across Central, Eastern Europe
NuScale Power has signed a definitive commercial agreement with mining and processing firm KGHM Polska Miedź S.A. to deploy a VOYGR power plant of up to 924 MWe as early as 2029 to support KGHM’s copper and silver production in Poland.
Under an “early works agreement” signed in a ceremony on Feb. 14 in the presence of U.S. and Polish government officials, Portland, Oregon—based NuScale and KGHM will kick off preparation of “the whole investment project,” including site selection, said Marcin Chludziński, president of the KGHM Polska Miedź S.A Management Board, during the ceremony. The agreement “is not just a declaration anymore, but an actual agreement,” Chludziński said.
The deal adds another major prospect to NuScale’s development pipeline of small modular reactors (SMRs) in Central and Eastern Europe, regions that have quickly emerged as a hotspot for advanced nuclear projects owing to a combination of factors. But it is also especially notable because it represents a deal with a large user of industrial energy, a key decentralized power market that could benefit from smaller installations of baseload, flexible power. KGHM is the second-largest industrial energy consumer in Poland, as Chludziński noted on Monday.
The Allure of SMRs for Large IndustryThe commercial agreement follows a memorandum of understanding (MOU) the two companies and Poland-based business engineering consultant Piela Business Engineering signed in September 2021 to collaborate on the development, licensing, and construction of a NuScale VOYGR plant in Poland. Under that MOU, the companies have worked to examine deploying NuScale’s SMR technology as a coal repowering/repurposing solution for existing coal-fired power plants, as well as for “energy in support of industrial operations in Poland.” The companies in September said their examination would include “an analysis of technical, economic, legal, regulatory, financial, and organizational factors.”
NuScale’s VOYGR SMR technology, first introduced in 2000 as an Oregon State University concept, has evolved into a modular light water reactor (LWR) design that can supply energy for power generation, district heating, desalination, hydrogen production, and other process heat applications. With flexibility as a core attribute, NuScale currently offers VOYGR power plants in scalable sizes, including as twelve 77-MWe modules, and as four- and six-module facilities. The company in an October 2021 white paper argued that the modular plants are well-suited to coal repowering because of their design simplicity, modular construction, load-following capabilities, and competitive leveled cost of electricity (LCOE). A 12-module, 924-MWe plant design may have an LCOE of $64/MWh, the company has said....
....MUCH MORE
If interested see also:
FT Copper: Miners place next bets on Russia with $15bn.
