PORTLAND, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--22 representatives from more than 15 U.S. utilities met with NuScale Power at its Corvallis, Oregon, offices recently for the small modular reactor developer’s NuScale Advisory Board (NuAB) meeting.
Since winning the second round of the U.S. Department of Energy's competitively-bid, cost-sharing program last December, interest in participating in NuAB has grown and is now comprised of 24 member companies including the owners and operators of nearly two-thirds of the US operating fleet of commercial nuclear power plants. NuAB attendees were provided with technical and regulatory briefings in order to provide guidance to NuScale on the company’s path to commercialization. Highlights of the meeting included updates on the reactor building design, increased plant power output rating, operational staffing, and supply chain growth.
In addition, NuAB members were presented with an overview of the upcoming facility upgrades to the one-third-scale NuScale SMR prototype test facility—required to provide the measurements necessary for safety code and reactor design validation. Included in the upgrades will be a state-of-the-art data acquisition and control system which will interface with nearly 500 instruments.
"This was my first NuAB meeting and the level of engagement and expertise NuScale has assembled is impressive,” stated Greg Halnon, Director Regulatory Affairs, FirstEnergy Corp. “Utilities were clearly contributing to a receptive and open NuScale staff who were enthusiastically applying real learnings to improving the design, development, testing and licensing plans."
Members of NuAB working groups also continue to advise NuScale on specific aspects of its technology, engineering and design development efforts.
About NuScale Power, LLC
NuScale Power, LLC is developing a new kind of nuclear plant; a safer, smaller, scalable version of pressurized water reactor technology, designed with natural safety features. Fluor Corporation (NYSE: FLR), a global engineering, procurement and construction company with a 60-year history in commercial nuclear power, is the majority investor in NuScale. As the sole winner of the second round of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) competitively-bid, cost-sharing program to develop nuclear small modular reactor (SMR) technology, NuScale's design offers the benefits of carbon-free nuclear power but takes away the issues presented by the cost of installing large capacity. A nuclear power plant using NuScale's technology is comprised of 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. NuScale power plants are scalable - additional modules are added as customer demand for electricity increases. NuScale's technology also is ideally suited to supply energy for district heating, desalination and other applications. NuScale is headquartered in Portland, Oregon and has offices in Corvallis, OR; Rockville, MD; Atlanta, GA; Charlotte, NC; and Chattanooga, TN. For more information visit: www.nuscalepower.com.