2024-02-13 09:13:20
Nuclear company NuScale Power has announced the abandonment of plans to build a first-of-its-kind nuclear power plant in Idaho, the VOYGR-6 project, consisting of six units with a total capacity of 462 MW. This small modular power plant project is being studied by the Armenian government commission as one of the possible options for building a new nuclear power plant.
Some nuclear proponents like the idea of small modular reactors that can be built using standardized technologies. This will presumably make them cheaper to build and speed up construction significantly.
But NuScale’s latest setback, the cancellation of a major project announced last week, contradicts those assumptions. Difficulties in the project, which the American company had hoped for for many years, became known as early as 2022, when the cost of construction suddenly increased to $9.3 billion, from $5.3 billion estimated a year earlier. A significant increase was also recorded in connection with the expected cost of electricity from the plant, which reached $89 per MWh from the originally planned $58. Experts speculate that the cost could have been higher, up to $120 per MWh, but that was avoided thanks to the US inflation-reducing law.
In January 2023, NuScale received reactor design approval from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. However, the licensing process was completed with a number of significant security reservations, which were delayed until the construction license stage. Furthermore, the license was obtained for a 50 MW reactor, but the company intends to build a 77 MW reactor, which would require a repeat, albeit shortened, process of design review by the regulator.
One can also notice many changes in the project, which has not even reached the construction phase and will not. The number of reactor modules has also changed. In July 2021, the company announced that it would reduce the project from the originally announced 12 to 6 modules with a total capacity of 462 MW. The power per module has also changed from 60 MW to 77 MW. Even the initial launch date of the first NuScale module was expected to be 2026, but was later pushed back to 2029.
The second option offered by the Americans for Armenia is the BWRX-300 unit, which is in the licensing stage, and the first station based on such technology will, in the best case, be built after 2030. Although the BWRX-300 uses the ESBWR boiling water reactor design and licensing base, which received design certification in the US in 2014, the small reactor design has not yet been validated in either Canada or the United States. In addition, based on the results of the NRC review of the technology, GEH is already considering the need to make a number of changes to the design. Regarding commercial figures, GEH does not publish the estimated cost of the project. According to some information, the project cost of building a nuclear power plant with BWRX-300 reactors may be twice the target.
In an effort to meet the global demand for new energy solutions, vendors around the world are developing their reactor designs, looking for ways to optimize the cost, design, licensing and construction processes. However, most projects (US, Canada, UK, France, etc.) are either in the early licensing phase, where vendors continue to make changes to the reactor design, or in the conceptual design phase and require significant funding to implement later phases.
Despite many obstacles, foreign vendors are conducting active marketing campaigns to promote their designs in regions that show interest in small solutions and on international platforms. These projects emphasize safety, the use of new types of fuel, and the underground location of the reactor plant. However, the advantages of such solutions, their performance and reliability, the stated cost and construction time of the plants, and even the viability of projects before the start of implementation, as shown by the case of NuScale, are purely declarative in nature and require practical evidence.
Despite the development of more than 80 NPP projects in 18 countries and more than 100 billion dollars spent on it, none of the aforementioned reactors has reached the stage of commercial use to date. The only nuclear power plant of small capacity that provides thermal and electrical energy to consumers is the Russian “Akademik Lomonosov” floating nuclear power plant. It is worth noting that the floating power unit was developed on the basis of the serial power plant of nuclear icebreakers, which was tested during decades of operation in the Arctic.
In their publications and reports, the responsible agencies of Armenia have always emphasized that referencing (i.e. confirmation of the technology of a built and operating nuclear power plant) is a mandatory criterion when choosing the technology, and it seems that after the failure of NuScale in the development of a small modular reactor, a new NPP block it is worth re-emphasizing referentiality when choosing.