SMRs | COVER STORY
One off deployment?
Some SMRs are under construction worldwide are based on familiar light water designs, but are not obviously replicable in a ‘series build’ outside their home market. CAREM in Argentina is a small PWR, rated at 32 MW, intended
to take advantage of an indigenous nuclear supply chain – some 70% of the components will come from Argentinian companies. In 2021 the Argentine government announced an effort to complete the reactor within three years, although the project has been in gestation for many years and dates back to the mid- 1980s. A potential follow-on project, planned for Formosa, is not
identical as it would be rated at 100 MWe. China’s Linglong 1 project at Changjiang is also a small-version PWR, rated at 152 MWe and in 2016 it was the first SMR to pass a safety review by the International Atomic Energy Agency. First concrete was poured in mid 2019 and late last year it was reported that equipment installation had begun. China and Russia have both named follow-up sites for their SMRs. China plans two 200 MW units in Baishan and Russia named Kurchatov in Kazakhstan as an expected home for two 300 MW units. ■
V work awarded to NuScale will define the major site and specific inputs for a VOYGR-6 plant to be deployed at the Doicesti power station. Importantly, Doicesti was not previously a nuclear site and instead has small coal-fired generation units. Similarly, in Poland, NuScale now has agreements
with companies in which it is providing ‘support’ as they investigate deploying VOYGR at sites that have not hosted nuclear technology in the past. One is a joint venture of Unimot (which offers Polish wholesale and retail customers fuel products, gas and electricity) and Getka (a US energy company) and the other is KGHM, a Polish metals extraction company and a large industrial energy user. KGHM has already begun discussions with the National Atomic Energy Agency (NAEA) and has signed an early works agreement with NuScale. NuScale can also point to Memoranda of Understanding
in Europe with Bulgaria, Ukraine and Czechia. Outside Europe it has similar agreements in Jordan and Kazakhstan. All, of course, require the reactor to be licensed. Also securing potential customers is GE Hitachi Nuclear
Energy’s BWRX-300 SMR. It secured its first site last year when Ontario Power Generation selected it for deployment at Darlington. OPG aims to complete the first commercial construction at the site in 2028. Notably, GEH has signed project delivery agreements with SNC-Lavalin and Aecon for that project. Design acceptance by CNSC will give a head start for a second deployment by SaskPower which has selected the BWRX-300 for potential deployment in Saskatchewan, although that is timed for the mid-2030s. This year GEH also announced that Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has begun planning and preliminary licensing for potential deployment of a BWRX-300 at its Clinch River site in Tennessee. The regulatory approval process has been kicked off in
Poland, where Orlen Synthos Green Energy (OSGE) and its partners have submitted an application to Poland’s National Atomic Energy Agency for assessment of the BWRX-300. OSGE says it wants to deploy “at least 10” BWRX-300s with the first in operation by the end of this decade. In addition, Fermi Energia announced that it had selected the BWRX-300 for potential deployment in Estonia. Rolls Royce has not yet secured a site in its home market
for its SMR. It believes the reactor will be of interest for so-called ‘industrial clusters’, areas which the UK has given a particular focus for decarbonisation. Government funding for the industrial clusters has been directed towards development of carbon capture and storage
(CCS) or hydrogen production, rather than opening the sites for new nuclear. The new nuclear option is currently restricted to specific sites in England and Wales (Scotland has a moratorium on new nuclear) identified when the government decided to restart nuclear build 20 years ago. In the end the sites identified were previous nuclear sites. Planning law reform currently under way should widen that pool of sites but, currently, industrial sites would require special permission from government. However, Rolls Royce has also found willing partners in Poland. The state- owned Industria business, a subsidiary of the Industrial Development Agency JSC, has selected the Rolls-Royce SMR for the Central Hydrogen Cluster, with plans to produce 50,000 tonnes of low-carbon hydrogen each year. It wants up to three units and Rolls-Royce SMR said that may open the door to “opportunities to replace more than 8 GW of coal-fired power plants in southern Poland with SMRs throughout the 2030s”.
User-first NuScale, GEH and Rolls Royce have sought design approval first and built customer numbers as the reactor advances through the process. But X-Energy may undertake the process in partnership. U
Above: A core cutaway graphic of NuScale’s VOYGR SMR design
www.neimagazine.com | April 2023 | 19
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