The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA’s) board of administrators has accredited a further $150 million for the general public energy utility’s $200 million New Nuclear Program to spice up continued design work and growth of potential small modular reactors (SMRs) at TVA’s Clinch River website close to Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
The mixed $350 million funding for the mission will help the great planning, design, and regulatory processes crucial for the deployment of SMRs via fiscal yr 2026. A key goal is to make sure that TVA is well-positioned to steer within the adoption of superior nuclear expertise, the utility stated on Aug. 22.
“We imagine superior nuclear applied sciences will play a essential function in our area and nation’s drive towards a clear vitality future,” stated Jeff Lyash, TVA president and CEO. “At this time’s Board choice demonstrates TVA’s dedication to proceed main on this effort. SMRs are an vitality innovation expertise that America should dominate—for our vitality safety, which is basically our nationwide safety.”
A Systemic Roadmap to Discover New Nuclear
The almost doubled funding cap marks a big vote of confidence by the board for TVA’s New Nuclear Program, which the corporate launched, with the board’s approval, in February 2022. “The New Nuclear Program gives a disciplined, systematic roadmap for TVA’s exploration of superior nuclear expertise, each by way of numerous reactor designs being proposed and potential places the place such services could also be wanted within the area to help future vitality wants—as outlined in TVA’s Strategic Intent,” the corporate stated on Thursday.
In February 2022, Lyash introduced the brand new program would pursue phased actions that will kick off with the design and licensing of a possible GE Hitachi BWRX-300 SMR at Clinch River, a 935-acre website in Roane County for which TVA holds the nation’s solely early website allow (ESP) from the Nuclear Regulatory Fee (NRC). Below the New Nuclear Program, TVA is at present making ready an NRC development allow utility for a BWRX-300 at Clinch River that would goal deployment within the 2030s, although its last approval will probably be topic to the required environmental evaluate and the board’s approval, TVA confirmed on Thursday.
Nevertheless, this system can be evaluating a number of superior reactor designs, together with light-water and non-light-water cooled reactors, for potential deployment within the 2040s. TVA stated extra “than a dozen distributors” have offered “detailed info” to help the Programmatic Environmental Influence Assertion.
Different key tenets of TVA’s nuclear technique entail preserving, extending, and optimizing its present nuclear fleet and researching and exploring large-scale gigawatt-scale nuclear choices.
A Template for SMR Deployment
Final yr, Lyash advised POWER he envisions Clinch River as a pivotal website that would function a template for deploying a number of SMRs throughout TVA’s service territory, beginning with a four-unit setup that could possibly be replicated at different places. “I’ve stated very vocally, I [want] nothing to do with constructing one reactor, until I can construct 20—and 20 is the low estimate—and so, that is what Clinch River is about,” Lyash stated as a visitor on The POWER Podcast. “There’s an optimum option to construct 4 models. It consists of numerous overlap—provide chain, labor, and so forth. That’s what we need to develop, however we’re going to ‘unlap’ the primary unit in order that we will be taught all these classes, establish all these dangers, and make models two and three and 4 look considerably higher and completely different, in order that once we construct website two, three, and 4, we’ve received that,” he stated.
TVA is working with a number of expertise companions in its bid to discover new nuclear. These embody Ontario Energy Era (OPG) in Canada and Orlen Synthos Inexperienced Vitality in Poland, each of that are concerned within the growth of the BWRX-300 small modular reactor (SMR). In March 2023, TVA, OPG, and Synthos kicked off efforts to collaborate on a normal design for the BWRX-300 to hurry up the expertise’s regulatory acceptance and spur future deployments. Below the collaboration, the businesses will even develop an in depth design for key BWRX-300 energy plant elements, similar to reactor stress vessels and internals. As well as, the three energy corporations are slated to kind a “Design Heart Working Group” whose goal will probably be “guaranteeing the usual design is deployable in a number of jurisdictions.”
Alongside a partnership with GE Hitachi devoted to the planning and licensing of a BWRX-300 on the Clinch River website, TVA is working with Kairos Energy, Bruce Energy, Constellation, and Southern Co. on Kairos’s efforts to develop its superior fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactor (KP-FHR). Kairos on July 30 introduced development had begun on Hermes, its 35-MWth iterative non-power demonstration molten salt nuclear reactor, on the East Tennessee Expertise Park Heritage Heart (ETTP) website in Oak Ridge. TVA’s different nuclear companions embody Oak Ridge Nationwide Laboratory (ORNL) and the College of Tennessee, which contribute essential experience in superior nuclear analysis, expertise analysis, and workforce growth.
TVA on Thursday stated its efforts are geared towards supporting “a path from first-of-kind expertise deployment to cost-effective business deployment at scale.” Nevertheless, the federal company underscored that “further help and collaboration will probably be wanted.”
“Authorities and coverage help is required to comprehend the advantages of latest nuclear. First-of-a-kind nuclear expertise, like several progressive expertise, carries monetary and technical dangers higher shared by a number of companions,” it famous. “Federal authorities help can be important to the development of first-of-a-kind expertise deployment as a result of dangers and extra prices which can be inherent to the expertise deployment course of. With a purpose to attain its long-term net-zero carbon emissions aspirations, TVA might want to think about a number of clear vitality applied sciences, together with SMRs, and authorities help will probably be essential to well timed deployment of SMR applied sciences within the U.S.”
TVA Is Gearing Up for a Demand Surge
On Thursday, TVA’s board of administrators accredited a 5.25% base charge enhance, which the utility has stated is important to help an enormous era and infrastructure build-out and hold tempo with its surging energy demand.
Whereas TVA, the nation’s largest public energy provider, at present serves 10 million clients throughout seven southeastern states, it says its area’s inhabitants is rising thrice quicker than the nationwide common. In 2023, gross home product in its service territory “grew 0.5% quicker than the nationwide common,” it reported on Thursday.
“In 1974, peak winter demand was at 18,000 MW,” Lyash advised the board on Thursday. “In January of this yr, we hit our all time peak demand file of over 34,000 MW—twice the load on this valley over that fifty yr interval, a doubling in 50 years, and to place that problem towards the longer term, we count on that very same doubling within the subsequent 25 years.”
The bottom charge enhance, which can take impact Oct. 1, 2024, will help TVA’s investments of a mixed $16 billion via fiscal yr 2027. “The company is constructing ~3,500 MW and has made nice progress by finishing 1,400 MW and securing 800 MW of photo voltaic this yr,” it stated.
“As vitality demand grows because of larger reliance on electrical energy, new residents transferring to this area, and new financial funding, we’d like a various fleet that leverages a number of era sources,” stated Lyash. “The reply to maintaining our vitality safe, inexpensive, and dependable is a well-rounded portfolio that’s more and more carbon-free and considerably expandable—and TVA’s portfolio is some of the various within the nation.”
TVA’s board notably accredited a 4.5% base charge enhance for fiscal yr 2024. The funding supported the completion of 1.5 GW of latest gas-fired era over the previous yr. That features three combustion turbine models, a mixed 750 MW, on the Colbert Combustion Turbine website in North Alabama and one other 750 MW with three new models on the Paradise Mixed Cycle plant close to Drakesboro, Kentucky.
Extra models are slated to return on-line over the subsequent few years. TVA plans so as to add 500 MW of peaking aeroderivative combustion generators at Johnsonville in late 2024, 1,500 MW of mixed cycle gasoline energy at Cumberland in late 2026, and 300 MW of photo voltaic at Lawrence County and Shawnee by late 2028. As well as, TVA says it has invested $1.5 billion to assist offset 30% of anticipated load development over the subsequent 10 years by investing in vitality effectivity and demand response.
On Thursday, Lyash famous that TVA’s various era assets have allowed the utility to handle gasoline prices successfully. TVA’s residential charges “are decrease than 75% of high 100 U.S. utilities and thru the primary 9 months of this fiscal yr energy charges had been three p.c decrease than the identical interval final yr regardless of the speed enhance,” the corporate stated.
“We plan, as you noticed [in the] finances presentation, to take a position almost $16 billion via fiscal yr 2027 to construct new era of every kind, improve reliability of present belongings, and on the underlying infrastructure it takes to leverage,” Lyash stated. “Our goal is twofold. It’s guaranteeing we keep vitality safety—that’s inexpensive and dependable vitality—and driving towards a low or zero carbon vitality future.”
—Sonal Patel is a POWER senior editor (@sonalcpatel, @POWERmagazine).
