NuScale Power has successfully installed a full-length test version of its nuclear-powered steam generator in Piacenza, Italy. The tests will provide important input into NuScale's Design Certification Application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which it expects to file in the second half of 2016. NuScale expects to deploy its first system for the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems' Carbon Free Power Project, with a potential site in Idaho. It plans to submit the UAMPS project for approval in 2017 and begin operations in late 2023. In late 2013, the U.S. Department of Energy selected NuScale for a commercialization project. It signed a $217 million cost-share contract with DOE in June.
Last week, the Washington state senate passed a bill requiring the state’s commerce department to “coordinate and advance the sitting and manufacturing of small-scale reactors,” according to the bill’s text. It goes on to define the technology in questionas, “a scalable nuclear power plant using reactors that each have a gross power output no greater than three hundred megawatts electric, and where each reactor is designed factory manufacturing and ease of transport, such as by truck, rail, or barge.”
There are many competing global small modular nuclear reactor projects.
China is building the HTR-PM high temperature reactor. It is expected to be in commercial operation in 2017. China is planning to build and buy 18 more in the next phase. They are expected to get to a cost of $1500/kw with volume production.
Nuscale Plant Overview
Each NuScale Power Module™ is a self-contained module that operates independently of the other modules in a multi-module configuration. However, all modules are managed from a single control room.
The reactor (1) measures 65 feet tall x 9 feet in diameter. It sits within a containment vessel (2). The reactor and containment vessel operate inside a water-filled pool that is built below grade. The reactor operates using the principles of natural circulation; hence, no pumps are needed to circulate water through the reactor. Instead, the system uses a convection process. Water is heated as it passes over the core (3). As it heats up, the water rises within the interior of the vessel. Once the heated water reaches the top of the riser (4), it is drawn downward by water that is cooled passing through the steam generators.
NuScale Power Module details include:
Thermal capacity – 160 MWt
Electrical capacity – > 50 MWe (gross)
Capacity factor – >95 percent
Dimensions – 76' x 15' cylindrical containment vessel module containing reactor and steam generator
Weight – ~ 700 tons as shipped from fabrication shop
Transportation – Barge, truck or train
Cost – Numerous advantages due to simplicity, off-the-shelf standard items, modular design, shorter construction times, <$5,000/KW Fuel – Standard LWR fuel in 17 x 17 configuration, each assembly 2 meters (~ 6 ft) in length; 24-month refueling cycle with fuel enriched less than 4.95 percent"
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