The Tennessee Valley Authority and Babcock & Wilcox announced a major step in their joint effort to build and test the nation’s first small modular reactor at TVA’s Clinch River Site in Oak Ridge Tennessee (US). The two companies have signed a contract formalizing the process toward the eventual submittal and Nuclear Regulatory Commission review of a licensing application for a B&W mPower small modular reactor nuclear plant at Clinch River.
The agreement is the first definitive milestone in the U.S. Department of Energy’s recently initiated SMR Licensing Technical Support Program, which aims for commercial demonstration of SMRs by 2022. DOE chose TVA in November for cost sharing in the design and licensing of the B&W mPower small modular reactor as part of the mPower America Team.
B&W’s mPower reactor is being designed to produce 180 MW, about one-sixth the size of large light-water reactors being built today. More of the equipment will be constructed in factories and shipped by rail to the plant site, resulting in reduced construction time and more standardization from plant to plant.
Interested in Power Plants?
Enerdata has developed a market research service to screen, monitor and analyse the development of power generation assets.
Power Plant Tracker offers an interactive database and a powerful search engine covering power plants worldwide – including both installed and planned capacities for renewables and fossil fuels.