Westinghouse Electric announces new small modular reactor borrowing from its AP1000 nuclear technology

Demand for nuclear power and SMRs has helped establish a market that didn’t exist a few years ago, top executive says

Westinghouse Electric announced Thursday its latest nuclear technology, designing and building a small modular reactor that borrows from its nuclear portfolio to speed development and reduce costs.

Read the original article by Stephen Singer of Utility Dive.

At a target cost of about $1 billion a unit, or $3,400 per kW, the AP300 SMR design is a 300-MWe single-loop pressurized water SMR. Scaled from Westinghouse’s advanced AP1000 reactor, the ultra-compact, modular-built unit uses identical AP1000 nuclear plant technology to include major equipment, structural components, passive safety, fuel and instrumentation and control systems.

“It’s leveraging a proven technology, a very efficient and reliable technology that’s already in operation around the world,” Patrick Fragman, president and CEO of Westinghouse, said at a news conference Thursday.

Twelve AP1000 units are in operation or construction, allowing the AP300 to tap into an established supply chain, he said.

Demand for nuclear power and SMRs has helped establish a market that didn’t exist a few years ago, he said. “We thought there was a big space to propose the AP300 SMR,” he said.

Site-specific licensing and construction of the first unit is expected toward the end of the decade and the AP300 SMR will begin delivering power to the grid in a decade, Fragman said.

The SMR will likely be used by industrial customers in addition to utilities, said David Durham, president of energy systems at Westinghouse.

The Westinghouse passive safety system, to be used with the AP300, automatically achieves safe shutdown without operator action and eliminates the need for backup power and cooling supply, the company said.

Like the AP1000, the AP300 is designed to operate for a life cycle of 80 years or longer. 

The AP300 SMR design uses Westinghouse’s Gen III+ technology that has regulatory approval in the U.S., Great Britain and China and complies with European Utility Requirements standards for nuclear power plants. It brings licensing advantages and reduces delivery risk for customers in the utility, oil and gas industries, Westinghouse said.

The SMR can be user for district heating and water desalination and integrated with renewable resources. The reactor also will enable production of hydrogen integrated with the plant, Westinghouse said.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in January certified NuScale Power’s small modular reactor design, the first of its type to win federal approval.