When people in the industry talk about cutting-edge construction technologies, these are usually buzzwords about things that are not widely in use, generally misunderstood and unlikely ever to deliver the advertised benefits – because they’re not appropriate solutions and our industry is too far from ready.

Due to the need for power resilience, sites would need to have some arrangement of N+1 power units – if each unit is too large then the investment costs would be simply too high.The modularity of SMRs and suitability to support DC loads will be important.. Licencing and regulation of nuclear power.

Small modular reactors are looking to address some of the licensing and regulation issues with repeatable modular design.. Based upon conversations and work with the small nuclear development ecosystem, there was a stated view that an industrialised modular nuclear offering is 20 years in the future.This view is in stark contrast to some who believe we will see offerings in three to five years.The difference may be in the maturity of the technology.

Without proven repeatability, regulation will remain arduous.Development is in progress, but the market is still some years from a pilot..

Some of the group suggested that the market for this technology is currently dysfunctional: modular nuclear developers have an idea and are looking for niche markets (for instance, replacing coal-fired power stations with SMRs, as well as data centre power).

It was suggested that the DC industry could help focus and accelerate development through the creation of an Industry-Brief defining the market.It allows for both simple, standard elements but also prototypes and more complex designs.

While the initial purpose of a digital marketplace for construction Platforms would be to propagate the use of standard components, it would certainly be useful to be able to make ‘specials’ to extend the functionality of the standard kit..Brick Link Studio.

Lego® is an interesting ‘Platforms’ case study in itself and a great example of how standard components do not limit individuality of design.There are also multiple manufacturers of the components.