DL E&C said on the 25th that it signed a contract with X-energy, a leading U.S. Small Modular Reactor (SMR) corporations, for an "SMR standardization design." It is a concretization of the collaboration with X-energy that has been pursued since 2023, and the company plans to complete the design by the first half of next year. The contract is worth about $10 million (about 15 billion won).
An SMR is a small reactor with an electric output of 300 MW (megawatts) or less and is emerging as a "game changer" that can capture both power supply and carbon neutrality. According to the National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) in the United Kingdom, by 2035 the global SMR market will reach 85 GW with 300 units, and the value is expected to reach $500 billion (about 753 trillion won).
Standardization of SMRs, considered next-generation nuclear power plants, is the design that forms the backbone of SMR construction and specifies how each facility in a power plant will interconnect and operate. DL E&C is the first Korean builder to directly perform standardization design. DL E&C plans to lead the 4th-generation SMR market through its strategic partnership with X-energy.
Unlike existing light-water reactors that use water as a coolant, X-energy possesses 4th-generation SMR technology that uses helium gas as a coolant. The completed design will be applied across X-energy's subsequent projects, starting with the first unit scheduled to begin operation in 2030. X-energy is currently pushing SMR construction in Texas and Washington in the United States, and the power produced there is planned to be supplied to Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world's largest cloud corporations.
X-energy has recently been expanding SMR cooperation one after another with global big tech companies. In 2024, it is pursuing the introduction of 5 GW (gigawatts) of SMRs based on Amazon's investment and cooperation, and last year it signed a joint development agreement with the British energy corporations Centrica for nuclear development totaling 6 GW. For X-energy, this has the effect of preempting large demand sources.
DL E&C and X-energy are moving to standardize SMRs because success or failure depends on who can build many SMRs quickly enough to achieve "economies of scale." If the stage of creating the brain of an SMR is "technology development," then "standardization design" is the stage of effectively commercializing already developed technology. The key is to raise productivity and lower expense by repeatedly applying the same design.
The core of standardization is "modularization." Modularization bundles several parts with similar functions into a single module, manufactures it in advance, and assembles it like Lego blocks. If a large nuclear plant has a structure in which major equipment such as a reactor and steam turbine are each connected by piping, an SMR has a "modular" structure that houses the major equipment of a conventional large nuclear plant in a single vessel. This method reduces the number of parts and processes used in power plants, increases construction efficiency, and secures stability in quality control.
Based on the design technology and construction experience it has accumulated in the plant sector, such as power plants and chemical plants, DL E&C plans to push rapid standardization and modularization of SMRs. SMRs have basic structures and equipment similar to power plants. DL E&C has proven its competitiveness by building power plants totaling 51.5 GW in 19 countries around the world to date.
Following DL E&C's $20 million (about 30 billion won) investment in X-energy in 2023, the two sides are expected to further strengthen their "SMR alliance," or strategic partnership, as the company carries out standardization design this year. The two corporations have been steadily strengthening their cooperation, including attending together last year's "Korea-U.S. Nuclear Innovation Roundtable" jointly hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy and Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources.
Yu Jae-ho, head of the plant business division at DL E&C, said, "This project goes beyond simple design to a sophisticated business model that develops and designs standardized SMRs," and added, "In particular, as a key partner in X-energy's business, we plan to lead the global 4th-generation SMR market and further strengthen the energy value chain."