NEW BUILD | REPURPOSING POWER SITES
Existing power sites and new nuclear
One opportunity to reduce the challenge of building new nuclear capacity is to develop reactors at existing large power generation sites. A new analysis explores existing coal-fired and nuclear power plant sites in the US to assess the new nuclear opportunity. The results show there is remarkable promise.
A NEW STUDY ON BEHALF of the US Department of Energy has concluded that there are well over one hundred coal- fired power plants in the USA that would be potentially suitable for siting up to 174 GWe of new nuclear capacity. The study, “Evaluation of Nuclear Power Plant and Coal
Power Plant Sites for New Nuclear Capacity” by the DOE’s Systems Analysis and Integration Campaign (SA&I), focused on estimating the number of potential new nuclear sites with a capacity of 600 MWe or more that could be situated on either currently operating or recently retired coal-fired power plants, as well as current nuclear power plant sites.
Developed using 2024 data on the operational status of
coal plants and on data from the 2022 coal-to-nuclear (C2N) study, the new analysis used the Oak Ridge Siting Analysis for power Generation Expansion tool, OR-SAGE.
Opportunities for new nuclear at coal-fired power plant sites To complement the 2022 C2N study a streamlined alternative OR-SAGE evaluation was performed that allowed coal-fired plant sites to be scored relative to their potential for a new nuclear power plant installation, an NPP backfit. Each CPP site was evaluated to include a 1-mile (1600 m) diameter around the generator and OR-SAGE was used to evaluate the site against 10 parameters. These parameters included population density, safe shutdown earthquake requirements, slope, landslide hazard and floodplain characteristics, as well as water flow for cooling, and proximity to hazards. If any of the OR-SAGE cells within assessment radius
exceeded one of these values then it is considered tripped. Of the 800 cells associated with the 1-mile radius area, the
Above: Existing coal-fired power plants have considerable scope for siting new nuclear capacity Source: GE Vernova
40 | February 2025 |
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