Robotics, sensors, artificial intelligence and autonomous
systems are just some of the potential technologies which
could be used for the Sort and Segregate Nuclear Waste
competition.
It is open to any interested organisations - they don’t
have to be from a nuclear background - to form consortia
and develop a plan to address the challenge. It involves
work at Sellafield and several Magnox nuclear reactor
sites – the UK’s first generation of nuclear reactor.
The NDA’s Head of Innovation, Sara Huntingdon, said:
It’s been a challenging time for businesses in recent
months. We hope this competition will excite
organisations - inspiring them to bring forward ideas
which could help transform our work in the nuclear
sector.
Dealing with waste is a huge ongoing challenge for us
as we progress our mission to decommission nuclear
sites. We want people to be creative and help us
develop new and innovative solutions. We welcome
technologies from all sectors - organisations don’t
have to have nuclear experience - just great ideas and
a passion for turning those into a reality.
Innovate UK’s Nuclear Innovation Lead, Derek Allen, said:
“We are delighted to be working with the NDA again to
deliver another Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI)
to help drive innovation into the nuclear decommissioning
supply chain.
We look forward to working with a wide range of
organisations, particularly those who will be new to
the sector, to deliver exciting and creative solutions.
This is a great opportunity for UK organisations to
grow their business and at the same time help deal with
the country’s nuclear waste in a safer, faster and
cheaper way.
This is the second competition to encourage integrated
innovation in nuclear decommissioning. The first launched
in 2017 to find solutions to help decommission highly
radioactive facilities at Sellafield – 15 submissions
were identified in phase one as having potential, 5 then
went forward to phase two to develop their ideas further
and 2 winning consortia were then chosen to turn their
ideas into reality.
This latest competition opens for applications from
August 17 and the closing date is November 11. After a
rigorous assessment process it is likely a number of
consortia will be chosen in February 2021 to carry out a
3 month feasibility study into their idea, for which they
will each be awarded up to £60,000.
The best submissions will then be given up to £900,000 to
go forward to the design and build phase of the project,
which can last up to 15 months.
Further competition details can be found [here]
An online briefing event/webinar takes place on August
25, to register click [here]
Further details on the technical specification can be
found here
