NuScale Power Corporation in collaboration with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has released the results of a two-year techno-economic assessment (TEA) examining the performance and profitability of coupling a NuScale Power Module (NPM) with a US chemical facility to provide nuclear-generated steam and electric power. The findings indicated that NuScale NPMs could support industries that use process steam and electricity in a reliable and profitable manner.
The NMP is a pressurised water reactor with all the components for steam generation and heat exchange incorporated into a single 77 MWe unit, using standard light water reactor fuel. A 12-module plant could generate up to 924 MWe.
Engineers from NuScale and ORNL performed a TEA of nuclear and natural gas as energy sources for a number of steam and power generation configurations, including NPMs, gas boilers, and combined use, to meet the chemical plant’s steam and power demand with the most reliable and cost-competitive integrated energy system. The study utilised actual chemical plant conditions and historical data.
This assessment, which follows an earlier study conducted using NuScale’s 50 MWe design, was based on NuScale’s uprated 77 MWe/250 MWt NPM design with a high-temperature, high-pressure, steam heat augmentation system. The latest study used NuScale’s design with revised capital costs, a 10-day refuelling outage time, reduced plant staffing, higher capacity factors, and a site boundary Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ) methodology. The study examined factors such as steam reliability, operational costs, and system stability.
The study concluded that
- The hybrid NPM/gas integrated energy system has a scalable architecture that offers maximum flexibility for optimising plant energy use and profitability.
- The 12-NPM plant is the most profitable, allowing the sale of excess power to the grid.
- A minimum configuration of 4-NPMs combined with boilers can meet all of the chemical plant requirements.
- An 8-NPM configuration allows for N-2 redundancy for very high reliability.
- A wide range of hybrid combinations (NPMs with gas-fired boilers) are both viable and profitable.
- The study demonstrated that the NuScale integrated energy system could meet the chemical plant requirements – specifically 1.3m kg/h of process steam, at 400°C (752°F), and 4.1 MPa (595 psia) – while also providing 73 MW of electric power.
- Excess power generated could be exported to the grid for increased profitability for any combination.
- The NPM with steam heat augmentation used highly-reliable, commercially available equipment to minimize costs and the use of high-temperature materials.
“As the first and only SMR to have our designs certified by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), NuScale continues to lead in the development of new technologies to provide process heat and electricity,” said Dr José Reyes, Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at NuScale Power. “As we saw in the results of this assessment, delivering high-temperature steam with NuScale’s scalable architecture provides industrial users with unparalleled flexibility that can be integrated into their processes and offers a promising new path for them to explore.”
He added: “We are proud of the collaboration with our partners at ORNL and grateful for the support of the US Department of Energy (DOE) under the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) initiative for this study and the exciting new opportunities that small modular reactors introduce.”
The technical report, Assessment of NuScale SMR Steam Heat Augmentation for Chemical Plant Decarbonization, can be downloaded from the US Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information.
