US-based X-energy Reactor Company has opened the first training centre for future operators of its Xe-100 advanced small modular reactor (SMR). The Plant Support Center (PSC) is a 10,000 square foot state-of-the-art facility, which includes a full-scale plant control room simulator, reactor protection system prototype, and virtual reality experience, as well as offices and classrooms.
The Xe-100 is a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor with a thermal output of 200 MWt or an electrical output of 80 MWe. It can be scaled into a four-pack 320 MWe power plant, fuelled by the company's proprietary TRISO-X tri-structural isotropic particle fuel. The Xe-100 evolved from both the UK’s Dragon reactor at Winfrith in Dorset and the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor project in South Africa. X-energy was selected by the US Department of Energy (DOE) in 2020 to receive up to $1.2bn in matching funds under the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) to develop, license, build, and demonstrate an operational advanced reactor and fuel fabrication facility by the end of the decade. X-Energy has since completed the reactor engineering and basic design and is developing a fuel fabrication facility in Oak Ridge in Tennessee.
ARDP is supporting X-energy’s initial deployment of the Xe-100 at Dow’s Seadrift, Texas facility as well as a new commercial facility to manufacture TRISO-X high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) fuel for next-generation reactors. The project in Seadrift aims to be the first grid-scale advanced nuclear reactor deployed to serve an industrial site in North America. X-Energy in 2023 also signed a joint development agreement with utility Energy Northwest for the deployment of up to 12 Xe-100 SMRs.
“The opening of X-energy’s first Plant Support Centre marks another stride forward to the deployment of our first Xe-100 reactors,” said X-energy CEO J Clay Sell. “Today represents an evolution in nuclear operator training and learning, equipped with cutting-edge, high-fidelity simulation and virtual reality technology. This facility will help train the next generation of nuclear plant operators, and it will set the stage for the first and subsequent deployments of our innovative advanced small modular reactor technology.”
The PSC is designed to train up to 52 operators at one time offering a hands-on experiential learning environment for future Xe-100 operators. X-energy's training programme will employ virtual and simulated environments, providing trainees with invaluable experience before entering the field. The sophisticated control room simulator aims to replicate the real-world plant control room. The control room includes automated digital systems “aiming to enhance operator experience and increase cost efficiencies”. The technology builds upon years of collaboration with the US Department of Energy programmes, including Advanced Reactor Concepts 2015, the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E), and the ARDP.
Before accepting its first trainees, X-energy will use the PSC for the final development of its training programme and reactor operating procedures. X-energy says that as plants become operational, the facility will host continuing education programmes leveraging real performance and operating data collected in the field to enhance training and professional development. X-energy plans to establish additional regional centres to support an expanding reactor fleet, which will become hubs for its operations, maintenance, and training services business.
“We hope this is the catalyst for advancing the way nuclear operators are going to be trained in the future. From analogue to digital displays, and from historical to real-time data, this is a highly engaging system of tools to propel US nuclear forward,” Sell said.
Image: A control room simulator is the centrepiece of the state-of-the-art facility (courtesy of X-energy)
