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.
Copyright Business Wire 2014