- Ontario’s Bruce Power to Build 4800 MWe New Nuclear Capacity
- OPG Inks Plans for Three BWRX-300 SMRs
- Westinghouse Inks Contract for 1st AP1000 in Ukraine
- Westinghouse Opens CNSC VDR Review for eVinci Micro Reactor
- DS Private Equity to Invest 75M euro in Romania’s SMR Project
- Texas A&M Gets $1M from DOE to Assess Lightbridge Fuel for Use in NuScale’s SMR
- URENCO to Expand NM Enrichment Plant to Meet Demand for Reactor Fuel
- Constellation Inks Deal for Nuclear Power Electricity for Microsoft Data Center
Ontario’s Bruce Power to Build 4,800 MWe New Nuclear Capacity
(WNN contributed to their report) Canada’s Ontario provincial government announced July 6th it will build 4,800 MWe of nuclear powered electricity generating capacity at Bruce Power’s existing site. It will be Canada’s first large-scale nuclear build in more than 30 years.The Ministry of Energy said it is working with the IESO and Bruce Power on a contractual approach to address the costs associated with the pre-development work to minimize the impact on ratepayers and will also look for ways to use funds collected from the sale of clean energy credits through the Future Clean Electricity Fund to help reduce the costs for ratepayers.
In response to news media inquiries, Energy Minister Todd Smith declined to say how much these new nuclear reactors would cost. Rate payers may be nervous about the surprise announcement for the new reactors given cost overruns from building the last Darlington unit.
The process for approving new nuclear capacity could take at least a decade. The pre-development work will take several years to complete and will help evaluate the suitability of the site by examining the impacts of a new facility on the environment, the public and Indigenous communities, with significant public input and community consultations. It is also a prerequisite for the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission’s licensing process for a new large-scale reactor.
Nuclear power supplies about half of the province’s electricity. The Bruce plant is one of the largest operating nuclear power stations in the world and can produce 6,550 megawatts of power. Adding 4,800 MW would increase that to 11,350.
Bruce Power’s eight existing CANDU reactors already produce some 30% of Ontario’s electricity, and the company said the site has space for “incremental infrastructure development.” The reactors use natural uranium for their fuel relying on Canada’s enormous uranium resources in Saskatchewan and in other provinces.
What Could be Built and at What Cost?
In terms of what type of reactors will be built, Canada has a long history of building PHWRs or CANDU type reactors that run on natural uranium. However, all of the current reactors at the Bruce Power site, even after completion of a massive refurbishment of them, are just over 800 MWe each. It would take six similar reactors to achieve 4,800 MWe.
It would take just three 1,670 MWe EDF EPRs to produce the same level of power. However, as these reactors would need to get their enriched fuel from France, it might make the EPRs less attractive financially as a choice.
There is a clear advantage for Canada to build more CANDU type reactors including having a workforce with the expertise to operate them, supply chains in place, and all that uranium.
Neither Bruce Power nor the provincial government offered a cost estimate for the new reactors. Since the projected date for breaking ground could be five to ten years in the future, any estimate based on today’s costs would be a guess at best.
That said, assuming the reactors are PWHRs, for which Canada has the most experience, a hypothetical benchmark price of $5,000/Kw would put the cost of six 800 MW units at $4 billion each or $24 billion for the set. Economies of scale in terms of supply chains and other factors would help keep the costs down. Any PWR, such as the EDF EPR, would cost more per unit.
Planning for Future Generation Capacity
Electricity demand in Ontario is rising for the first time since 2005. Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) last year issued a report forecasting that the province could need to more than double its electricity generation capacity from today’s 42,000 MWe to 88,000 MWe by 2050.
The IESO report recommended that Ontario begin planning, siting and environmental assessment work for long-lead assets, including nuclear power, as a “no regret” action towards meeting decarbonization goals and increasing electricity demand driven by strong economic growth, electrification and population growth beyond 2030.
Over 80% of Canada’s population of 34 million live within 100 miles of the US border and the key focus is along a line from Toronto to Montreal. Ontario has the most population of any of the Canadian provinces.
Minister of Energy Todd Smith said Ontario’s “open for business approach” has led to “unprecedented” investments across the province. “With our plan already in place to meet demand this decade, we are starting the pre-development work to identify future generation options, including reliable, affordable and clean nuclear energy, that will power our province into the future.”
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OPG Inks Plans for Three BWRX-300 SMRs
(WNN) The Ontario provincial government announced it is working with Ontario Power Generation (OPG) to begin planning and licensing for three additional GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) BWRX-300 small modular reactors, for a total of four, at the Darlington plant site.Todd Smith, Ontario’s Energy Minister, said building four SMRs together at Darlington would take a “fleet approach” to keep costs down and build up local expertise.
“Sharing common infrastructure between units is going to help us reduce costs. And building four units provides more opportunities for Ontario companies to make the investments to expand their operations to serve the growing SMR market.”
The announcement about three potential additional units follows one last January about a contract to build a single BWRX-300 at OPG’s Darlington site. Construction of that unit is scheduled to be completed by late 2028, with the supplying of power to the grid set to start in 2029.
Subject to Ontario Government and Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) regulatory approvals on construction, the additional three SMRs could come online by the mid-2030s.
This time frame would allow OPG to apply lessons learned from the construction of the first unit to deliver cost savings on subsequent units. Building multiple units will also allow common infrastructure such as cooling water intake, transmission connection and control room to be utilized by all four units instead of just one, reducing costs even further.
“A fleet of SMRs at the Darlington New Nuclear Site is key to meeting growing electricity demands and net-zero goals,” said OPG President and CEO Ken Hartwick.
Last October OPG submitted an application to the CNSC for a license to construct a BWRX-300 at the Darlington site. This license is required before any nuclear construction work on the SMR can begin. However, site preparation work is already under way at the site. OPG expects to make a construction decision by the end of 2024.
The BWRX-300 is a 300 MWe water-cooled, natural circulation SMR with passive safety systems that leverages the design and licensing basis at the US NRC of GEH’s ESBWR boiling water reactor. The CNSC issued a positive decision in March, making the BWRX-300 the first SMR to complete such a pre-licensing Vendor Design Review in Canada. In the US the reactor is in pre-licensing consultations with the NRC and no date has been announced for submission of a license application by GEH.
OPG has an agreement with TVA in the US to pursue joint development and licensing of the BRX-300. TVA is planning for but has not yet committed for multiple units to be built at the Clinch River site where it set a target for 800 MW.
The announcement of the additional SMRs comes days after the Ontario government announced it is starting pre-development work to build up to 4800 MWe of new nuclear capacity at Bruce Power’s existing site, in what would be Canada’s first large-scale nuclear build in more than 30 years.
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Westinghouse Inks Contract for 1st AP1000 in Ukraine
- Ukraine / ‘Contracts Signed’ For Construction Of First AP1000 Nuclear Plant At Khmelnitski
- Kyiv has also expressed interest in deploying Westinghouse’s AP300 small modular reactor
(NucNet contributed to this report) Contracts have been signed to begin construction of a first AP1000 pressurized water reactor unit at the Khmelnitski nuclear power station (map) in northern Ukraine, David Durham, president of energy systems at Westinghouse said in a press statement.
In a follow-up interview with Interfax-Ukraine news agency, Durham said regulatory work supporting Energoatom, the state-owned operator of Ukraine’s 15 nuclear power plants, had begun including licensing the plant.
Durham said Westinghouse has not been directly involved in the cost estimates for the planned plant, but an estimated cost was reported by Interfax of $5 billion (€4.5 billion) to build a single 1150 MWe AP1000 unit.
Durham added that Westinghouse anticipates supporting state nuclear operating company Energoatom in developing a financing package, with “substantial support” from the US Exim Bank. So far that agency has not announced any decision to provide this level of export financing nor for the AP1000s Westinghouse says it wants to build in Poland.
In January Ukraine’s cabinet adopted an ordinance detailing “organizational measures” for the construction of Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear power plants at Khmelnitski with a feasibility study to be prepared as the next step.
In August 2021 Energoatom and Westinghouse signed a memorandum on the construction of five power units in Ukraine using AP1000 technology. In June 2022 Energoatom and Westinghouse signed further agreements related to increasing the number of units to be built in Ukraine using AP1000 technology from five to nine, although not all would be at Khmelnitski. The two companies have already agreed to construct AP1000s for Khmelnitski-5 and -6 and begin the licensing process for the two plants.
Khmelnitski -3 and -4 officially remain under construction, but both units were to be supplied by Russia. Energoatom had said that -3 would be completed with VVER-1000 technology while Khmelnitski-4 would be an AP1000 unit. A recent agreement with Bulgaria would sell VVER reactor components procured for but never installed at the Belene reactor for completion of Khmelnitski -3. Bulgaria paid Rosatom $600M for the components in a settlement after cancelling the project.
The ongoing war makes the start of construction of new nuclear reactors a significantly risky enterprise. Russian forces could easily target the construction sites with long range missiles stopping progress and potentially killing the workforce needed to build the reactors. Until the war is over, any site work on new reactors in Ukraine is likely a long term aspiration at best.
Discussions Continue On First AP300 Reactor
Durham said Ukraine has also expressed interest in integrating Westinghouse’s AP300 small modular reactor alongside AP1000 units. The AP300 SMR is undergoing certification in the US with an expected completion date of 2027. Westinghouse unveiled its mid-sized AP300 nuclear power plant in May, saying it could be under construction at a cost of $1 billion per unit by the end of the decade. The plant is a scaled-down version of the AP1000.
The company said the AP300 is the only SMR based on reactor technology that is already in operation. It will reuse systems and supply chains from the AP1000, making it “readily deployable” and bringing construction time down to about three years. Ukraine’s energy minister Herman Haluschenko said recently Ukraine is considering ambitious plans to build up to 20 SMRs to replace thermal generation units destroyed during the war with Russia.
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Westinghouse Opens CNSC VDR Review for eVinci Micro Reactor
- The effort is aided by a CAD$27M Grant from the Canadian government
- Submissions are Critical First Step on Path to Successful Deployment in Canada
Westinghouse Electric Company announced it has submitted the first set of Vendor Design Review documents to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) for the eVinci microreactor. The submissions will enable early identification and resolution of potential regulatory and technical issues as the eVinci technology advances through the design process.
Westinghouse provided four Phase 1 Focus Area submissions to the CNSC on June 30. Overall, more than 40 submissions will be filed during Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the VDR process. The work scope is funded in part by a CAD$27 million grant from the Canadian government.
Westinghouse is also planning to submit reports for joint review under the Memorandum of Cooperation between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the CNSC. The reports will focus on selected design aspects of the eVinci microreactor with the primary objective of establishing alignment and a common understanding on regulatory expectations.
“Taking these vital first steps with the regulator marks an important milestone as we successfully accelerate the development of this game-changing technology,” said Jon Ball, Westinghouse President for eVinci Microreactor.
Westinghouse described the eVinci microreactor technology as allowing for power systems ranging from several kilowatts to 5MW of electricity, delivered 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for eight-plus years without refueling. The plan is for the micro reactor to be 100% factory built and assembled before it is shipped in a container to any location.
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DS Private Equity to Invest 75M euro in Romania’s SMR Project
(SeeNews) South Korean investment fund DS Private Equity (DSPE) will invest 75 million euro ($81.6 million) in the second phase of the front-end engineering and design (FEED) study related to the development of a NuScale small modular reactor (SMR) nuclear power plant in Romania according to a statement from the Romanian energy ministry.DSPE signed an agreement with Romanian nuclear power plant operator Nuclearelectrica [BSE:SNN] and electricity and natural gas supplier Nova Power & Gas, the shareholders of RoPower, which is the project company developing the SMR project.
The amount to be invested by DSPE is part of the multinational public-private partners’ commitment from the U.S., Japan, South Korea and the UAE to provide up to $275 million (252.6 million euro) for the NuScale SMR power plant project located in Doicesti, southern Romania.
The investment will contribute to the financing of the SMR plant starting with the second phase of the FEED project, which consists of a series of activities including site analysis, project scheduling, budgeting, as well as licensing and regulation activities.
According to Crunchbase, in May 2022 NuScale Power raised $235,000,000 / Post IPO Equity from DS Private Equity and five other investors.
In January, U.S.-based Nuscale signed a contract with RoPower for the first phase of the FEED work for the deployment of the first SMR power plant in Europe.
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Texas A&M Gets $1M DOE Award to Assess Lightbridge Fuel for Use in NuScale’s SMR
Lightbridge Corporation (Nasdaq: LTBR), an advanced nuclear fuel technology company, announced that Texas A&M University (TAMU) has been awarded approximately $1,000,000 by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Nuclear Energy University Program R&D Awards to study the deployment of advanced nuclear fuels in Small Modular Reactors.
The project will be conducted over three years and will be funded in its entirety by the DOE, with the goal of bringing collaborative teams together to solve complex problems to advance nuclear technology and understanding.
The study will consist of a comprehensive characterization of the performance of Lightbridge Fuel inside a small modular reactor (SMR) designed by NuScale Power (NYSE: SMR).
Structural Integrity Associates (SI) will perform the thermal evaluation of Lightbridge Fuel in the SMR using its PEGASUS simulation software, a next generation fuel evaluation and design optimization tool. The study will generate unique sets of experimental data of friction factor, flow, and heat transfer behavior under normal and off-normal conditions. An abstract of the study can be found online.
Prof. Yassin A. Hassan, Principal Investigator of the study and Director of the Center for Advanced Small Modular and Micro Nuclear Reactors (CASMR) at Texas A&M University, said, “The Center is excited for this opportunity to collaborate with industry leaders Lightbridge, NuScale Power and Structural Integrity Associates. This award brings together the unique expertise of academia and industry to enable significant advancement in the commercialization path for next-generation nuclear fuels.”
José N. Reyes, Ph.D., Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of NuScale Power commented, “NuScale is pleased to work with Texas A&M University and Structural Integrity Associates to assess the performance of Lightbridge’s highly advanced fuel in our groundbreaking small modular reactor. Highly efficient fuel performance benefits not only our customers, but also the environment. Additionally, it further enhances the flexibility and reliability of our industrial applications such as high temperature process heat and hydrogen production.”
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URENCO to Expand NM Enrichment Plant to Meet Demand for Reactor Fuel
- Company says it wants to strengthen nuclear fuel supply chain globally
The project will see multiple new centrifuge cascades added to an existing plant, and will be the first project to be delivered as part of Urenco’s capacity program, which will strengthen the nuclear fuel supply chain both in the US and globally.
Urenco, Group is a British-German-Dutch nuclear fuel consortium operating several uranium enrichment plants in the US Germany, the Netherlands and the UK.
It said the capacity program is a long-term plan to extend and refurbish enrichment capacity at its sites to meet increasing customer demand as more countries and utility companies turn to nuclear for the first time, or seek to extend or diversify fuel supplies for existing nuclear operations.
The company said in a press statement, “The combination of the climate crisis and energy security concerns in the light of the changed geopolitical situation is resulting in a greater demand for nuclear energy and Urenco’s enrichment services. New commitments from US customers for non-Russian fuel underpin this investment, which will provide an additional capacity of around 700 tonnes of SWU [separative work units] per year, a 15% increase at UUSA, with the first new cascades online in 2025.”
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Constellation Inks Deal for Nuclear Power Electricity for Microsoft Data Center
The agreement combines the environmental attributes of nuclear power with hourly carbon-free energy matching to help a Virginia data center operate on nearly 100% clean power.Constellation (NASDAQ: CEG) announced an agreement with Microsoft to significantly reduce the carbon footprint of one of Microsoft’s data centers in Boydton, Virginia. Under the agreement, the facility will receive up to 35 percent in environmental attributes from nuclear power, complementing the company’s new wind and solar purchases.
This agreement puts Microsoft very close to its goal of operating the data center on 100 percent carbon-free electricity, Microsoft will track its performance using Constellation’s hourly carbon-free energy (CFE) matching platform, which delivers state-of-the-art accounting to demonstrate environmental results.
Data centers consume considerable amounts of energy. There are two main energy consumption sources for a data center: the operation of computer servers and the use of cooling systems. Per the US Department of Energy, the largest data centers with tens of thousands of devices require over 100MW of power, which is enough to power approximately 80,000 households.
Data centers are one of the most energy-intensive building types, consuming 10 to 50 times the energy per floor space of a typical commercial office building. Collectively, these spaces account for approximately 2% of the total U.S. electricity use, and as our country’s use of information technology grows, data center and server energy use is expected to grow too.
About the Match of Power Sources
Hourly CFE matching is a relatively new Constellation retail product offering that leverages software technology to help customers establish and achieve their environmental goals. Constellation is now leveraging its innovative Microsoft Azure-based hourly matching CFE platform and retail structuring expertise to design flexible and comprehensive retail solutions for customers looking to match their power demands with regional carbon-free energy around the clock.
“Constellation and Microsoft have been working collaboratively for several years to pioneer this technology, so it is fitting that Microsoft is one of our first hourly CFE matching customers,” said Jim McHugh, executive vice president and chief Commercial Officer.
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