WOOD has been appointed to play an important role in designing the next generation of nuclear power plants in the UK as the Scots engineering giant reduces its reliance on the North Sea oil services market.
Aberdeen-based Wood will lead work on the second phase of a research programme that will consider how digital technology could be used to help speed up the design of nuclear reactors and reduce the costs involved.
The company will work with experts from industry and academia on the $4.6 million (£3.6m) project.
It said this will use collaborative virtual engineering and high-performance computing to demonstrate significant cost savings in the design, construction, operation and decommissioning of nuclear power reactors.
The appointment provides a vote of confidence in Wood as the firm looks to reposition itself as a provider of a broad range of technical solutions. The company made its name helping oil and gas firms develop and maintain North Sea facilities.
However, the North Sea services market shrank in response to the plunge in the crude price from 2014 to 2016.
Wood boosted its expertise in areas such as nuclear engineering through the £2.2 billion acquisition of Amec Foster Wheeler in 2017 under chief executive Robin Watson’s drive to reduce the firm’s reliance on the North Sea.
Amec Foster Wheeler was appointed in 2017 to lead the first phase of work by the Digital Reactor Design Partnership. Participants include firms such as EDF Energy and Rolls-Royce, the University of Liverpool’s Virtual Engineering Centre, and the University of Sheffield’s Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre.
Last week Wood clinched a $1billion contract to work on the Sellafield nuclear complex. The 20-year contract will involve providing design input for a range of major projects and site-wide improvements at the facility in Cumbria.
Andrew Stephenson, the UK government’s Minister for Nuclear, said of the Digital Reactor Design Partnership: “Using state-of-the-art virtual engineering and computing technology to design and build the next generation of nuclear reactors will position the UK at the cutting-edge of low-carbon energy innovation.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here