NuScale and DOE Complete SMR cooperative agreement; initiates up to $217M funding of NuScale SMR development
28 May 2014
NuScale Power has finalized the cooperative agreement with the US Department of Energy (DOE) as an awardee under the program for “Cost-Shared Development of Innovative Small Modular Reactor Designs.” The agreement calls for NuScale to receive up to $217M in matching funds over a five year period.
NuScale was selected as the sole awardee of the DOE round two funding in December of 2013.
The company will use the funds to perform the engineering and testing needed to proceed through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Design Certification Process. NuScale expects to submit the application for design certification in the second half of 2016. This will allow NuScale to meet a commercial operation date of 2023 for its first planned project, in Idaho, with partners Energy NorthWest and Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems.
NuScale Power, LLC is developing a safer, smaller, scalable version of pressurized water reactor technology, designed with natural safety features. Fluor Corporation, a global engineering, procurement and construction company with a 60-year history in commercial nuclear power, is the majority investor in NuScale.
A nuclear power plant using NuScale’s technology comprises individual NuScale Power Modules, each producing 45 megawatts of electricity with its own factory-built combined containment vessel and reactor vessel, and its own packaged turbine-generator set. A power plant can include as many as 12 NuScale Power Modules to produce as much as 540 megawatts.
The reactor coolant is driven by natural circulation and can be shut down safely with no operator action, no AC or DC power, and no external water.
Could transportable, mass produced, reactors be made small enough to supply clean energy to two large road side rest stops including restaurants, H2 stations and quick charge e-stations for future FCEVs and BEVs?
Night time excess e-energy could be used to produce and store H2 to supply electricity to meet peak demand hours on an as required basis.
Matching the reactor size to demand may not be that easy.
Posted by: HarveyD | 29 May 2014 at 03:11 PM