With the UK setting 2030 as the target for its Clean Power 2030: Action Plan: A new era of clean electricity, just how do you ‘square the circle’ regarding baseload power generation when an ever-increasing level of intermittent renewable technologies are being connected to the grid?
What are the UK’s Baseload Power Generation Options?
The most natural jumping-off points are the combustion of natural gas, which hardly assists with any stated clean energy ambition, and nuclear reactors. In 2024, nuclear facilities accounted for just 14% of the UK’s overall power generation. In contrast, natural gas generation was more than double this figure.
Replacing aging baseload plants favours gas generation in terms of both cost and expeditious delivery of new capacity. However, casting emissions concerns aside, with the UK’s increasing reliance on securing LNG shipments, the ‘security of supply’ of the primary fuel raises a major question mark. The cost of the input fuel can also be extremely volatile – as anyone hedging natural gas in Q2 2022 will still readily recall.
Also, we should consider that we’re not just talking about the replacement of end-of-life generation capacity. The boom in the AI industry means that, by 2050, it’s anticipated that the UK’s power requirements will have doubled. So, is the UK’s 2030 commitment to clean power a step too far?
Conversely, ‘security of supply’ and lack of operational emissions tip the balance towards nuclear generation. However, the delays and budget overruns at Hinkley Point C – thought to be circa 6 years and £18 billion – show why these projects are a major investment (and political headache) and can hardly be considered a near-term deliverable solution. The UK Government is ploughing this furrow again with Sizewell C, resulting in commercial power consumers having to pay yet another new environmental energy tax in the form of the Nuclear RAB (Regulated Asset Base) Levy – the cost of membership being circa £3.50/MWh.
Many may also be unaware that the UK is one of 31 countries that have pledged to triple nuclear capacity by 2050. So what exactly is the ruse?
Enter the Small Modular Reactors (SMR)
Compared to the £14.2 billion stake the UK Government has taken in Sizewell C, some £2.5 billion has also been set aside for Rolls-Royce’s development of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). These much smaller and simpler nuclear plants – which the BBC recently deemed the “flat-pack power station” (Small Modular Reactors: What are they and why does UK want them? - BBC News) - can be fabricated off-site and then transported and bolted together at your chosen location - typically anywhere with a highly convenient grid connection.
This technology should be significantly cheaper and quicker to construct than a full-scale nuclear plant, whilst still delivering up to one-third of the low-carbon generation capacity. It is also anticipated that development of the sector will boost UK jobs, investment, and manufacturing – something we’ve definitely heard before in respect of wind-farm technologies.
What is the future for Small Modular Reactors (SMR)?
The UK isn’t the only Country looking to SMRs. Poland announced on 28 August 2025 that a joint Venture between state-owned Orlen and Synthos Green Energy will build what is likely to be the first BWRX-300 technology Small Modular Reactor in Europe. Furthermore, Sweden is considering a $23.5 billion loan facility for energy companies to finance up to 2.5 GW of new nuclear capacity.
The technology is still very much in its infancy, and worldwide, there are somewhere around 80 different design philosophies for SMRs. At the time of writing, only Russia and China are already operating Small Modular Reactors - their grid connections taking place in 2019 and 2021 respectively.
In the US, the likes of Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have already signed commitments to adopt Small Modular Reactors once commercially viable, looking to satisfy their increasingly power-hungry AI services.
Returning to UK shores, it is expected that the site of the first SMR will be announced by the end of this year (2025) and that this facility will be operational by mid-2030. In contrast, Hinkley Point C was first given the go-ahead in 2016 and could potentially be operational by 2031. Development of this technology has also been bolstered by the recent UK/US announcement of a collaboration between Centrica and X-Energy, which could see up to 12 modular reactors manufactured in Hartlepool, UK.
Once SMRs are being manufactured and constructed in greater numbers – i.e., the technology becomes scalable - commercial electricity consumers could feasibly benefit from a reduction in their wholesale power costs. With less reliance on natural gas for the generation of baseload power, you would naturally expect to see a reduction in this commodity cost as well.
Is the panacea of zero carbon baseload generation – along with stable energy pricing - just around the corner? It may well be. Although we could possibly just be exchanging one environmental problem for another, with experts citing that the whole issue of processing spent fuel from SMRs has been largely overlooked.