“It’s a big deal and should be celebrated as a milestone,” Buongiorno said. However, it would be a mistake to discount what lies ahead: “There is nothing easy or quick when it comes to the NRC,” he said.
There’s an additional wrinkle: NuScale wants to modify the reactor modules. While the company was in a long regulatory process, researchers were still working on the design of the reactor. During the delivery and planning process, the company realized that the reactors could achieve better performance.
“We discovered that we can generate more power with the same reactor, with the same size,” said Jose Reyes, founder and chief technology officer at NuScale. Instead of 50 megawatts, the company can produce 77 megawatts per module.
So the company changed direction. For the first power plant to be built at the Idaho National Laboratory, NuScale plans to package six high-capacity reactors together, bringing the plant’s total capacity to 462 MW.
The improved power level requires some adjustments, but the module design is basically the same. Still, it meant the company had to resubmit the updated plans to the NRC, which it did last month. It could take up to two years before the revised plans are approved by the agency and the company can move to site approval, Reiss said.
Long road ahead
In the year In 2017, NuScale plans to have its first power plant in Idaho operational by 2026 and generate electricity for the grid. That timeline has been pushed back to 2029.
Meanwhile, costs are higher than when the regulatory process first began. In January, Nuscal announced that the price of electricity from the Idaho plant project had risen from $58 to $89 per megawatt hour. This is more expensive than most sources of electricity today, including solar and wind power and most natural gas plants.
If not for substantial federal investment, the price increase would be even greater. The Energy Department has spent more than $1 billion on the project, and last year’s rate cut legislation includes a $30/MWh credit for nuclear power plants.
