EDF and Cavendish Nuclear, members of the South West Nuclear Hub, are among 14 companies who have been awarded contracts by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) to come up with innovative approaches to remotely sort and segregate radioactive waste.
The ‘Sort and Seg’ innovation competition, worth £3.9 million in total, was launched in July 2020. The NDA, in partnership with Magnox Ltd, Sellafield Ltd and Innovate UK, set the challenge of coming up with proposals for using autonomous technology to sort and segregate mixed radioactive wastes at the UK’s oldest nuclear sites.
Contracts, worth up to £60k each, have been awarded to 14 consortia that will now come up with feasibility studies for their proposals, including robotics, advanced sensors and artificial intelligence. The initial feasibility studies will be delivered in May, with the winners competing for a number of contracts - each worth up to £900k - for 15-month ‘demonstrator projects’.
Sort and Seg Innovation Competition Winners
The full list of companies is:
- AB5 Consulting Ltd
- Jacobs Clean Energy Ltd
- A.N. Technology Ltd
- Atkins Ltd
- Barrnon Ltd
- Cavendish Nuclear Ltd
- Chilton Computing Ltd
- Create Technologies Ltd
- Delkia Ltd
- EDF Energy R&D Centre Ltd
- Forth Engineering (Cumbria) Ltd
- Nuvia Ltd
- Red Marine Engineering Ltd
- Veolia Nuclear Solutions Ltd
You can read the full news article from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority here: NDA article