NuScale Power Corporation (NuScale) is redefining nuclear power through the development of proprietary SMR technology that will deliver safe, scalable, and reliable carbon-free power.
The company’s core technology, the NuScale Power Module (‘NPM’), can generate 77 MWe (megawatts) and is premised on well-established nuclear technology principles, with a focus on the integration of components, simplification or elimination of systems and use of passive safety features. This results in a safe and...
NuScale Power Corporation (NuScale) is redefining nuclear power through the development of proprietary SMR technology that will deliver safe, scalable, and reliable carbon-free power.
The company’s core technology, the NuScale Power Module (‘NPM’), can generate 77 MWe (megawatts) and is premised on well-established nuclear technology principles, with a focus on the integration of components, simplification or elimination of systems and use of passive safety features. This results in a safe and highly reliable power plant suitable to be sited close to where electricity or process heat is needed.
In September 2020, the company’s 12-module design (approved for 160 million watts of thermal power or 50 MWe per NPM) became the first and only SMR to receive a Standard Design Approval (SDA) from the NRC. The approval was a critical milestone that allows customers to move forward with plans to develop NuScale SMR-based power plants, knowing that safety aspects of the NuScale design are NRC-approved.
In January 2023, the company submitted a second SDA Application and the associated licensing topical reports to the NRC for NuScale’s 6-module, 77 MWe NuScale Power Module (NPM) plant design. On July 31, 2023, the NRC formally announced that it accepted the company’s SDA Application for review. Once approved, customers in the United States will be able to reference the certified design and SDA for expedited construction and operating licensing of NuScale’s SMR pursuant to 10 CFR Part 52. Based on the NRC’s published schedule for SDA Application review, the company expects the NRC will complete its review and SDA approval will be received by mid-year 2025.
In addition to the sale of NPMs, the company will offer a diversified suite of services throughout the development and operating life of the power plant. The company’s suite of services is planned to include licensing support, testing, training, fuel supply services and program management, among others.
The company’s potential offtake customers are a mix of domestic and international governments, utilities, state-owned enterprises and technology and industrial companies in need of carbon-free, reliable energy.
NuScale has aligned with ENTRA1 as its commercialization / developer partner for NuScale SMRs. ENTRA1 will develop and construct new build energy plants that will be designated / identified as ENTRA1 Energy Plants with NuScale SMRs inside and are the ideal solutions addressing the challenges and meeting the objectives for the customer.
Technology
The company’s NPM is the product of approximately 18 years of research and development by NuScale and key collaborators, including Oregon State University and the Idaho National Laboratory.
NuScale SMR-based power plants are composed of multiple NPMs, each of which is capable of producing 77 MWe. The NPM consists of an integral reactor composed of the reactor core, helical coil steam generators and pressurizer within the reactor pressure vessel, enclosed in a steel containment vessel. The NPM operates inside a stainless-steel lined, water-filled pool located below ground level. The company’s NPM technology leverages existing light water nuclear reactor technology and fuel that has been operating globally for over 60 years.
Design Features and Innovations
The company’s NPM introduces a number of key design innovations that allows it to be the safest and most reliable provider of nuclear energy. These design features include:
Proven Technology: The company’s NPM design relies on well-established pressurized, light water reactor technology. As such, NuScale SMR-based power plants can be licensed within the existing regulatory framework for light water reactors, drawing on a vast body of established research and development, proven codes and methods and existing regulatory standards.
Single, Integrated Unit: The NPM incorporates all the components for steam generation and heat exchange into a single integrated unit. This design eliminates all large bore interconnection piping, which is historically a potential source of failure and cause of construction complexity for large-scale reactors.
Compact Size: Each NPM, including the containment vessel, can be entirely fabricated in a factory and shipped by rail, truck, or barge to the power plant site for assembly and installation. Fabrication of the modules in a factory environment reduces fabrication cost, improves quality, reduces construction time and increases schedule predictability. This is a distinct benefit compared to traditional large-scale nuclear plants in which reactors are built on-site and only after their completion can the balance of the plant be constructed.
Natural Circulation: The reactor core of the company’s NPM is cooled entirely by natural circulation of water. Natural circulation provides a significant advantage by eliminating reactor coolant pumps, pipes and valves and the associated power, maintenance and potential failures of those components.
Refueling and Maintenance Innovations: Each NPM can produce power continuously for approximately 20 months before refueling is required. Because of the multi-module design of NuScale SMR-based power plants, each NPM can be refueled in a staggered manner, reducing total plant output by only 77 MWe for approximately 10 days. Whereas large-scale nuclear plants can require as many as 1,000 or more individuals for refueling and associated outage activities, the company can undergo the same refueling and outage activities with a much smaller, permanent, in-house crew made up of as few as 50 individuals.
Multi-Module Control Room: NuScale has designed, and received NRC approval for, an innovative control room that can control up to 12 NPMs with only three licensed operators. This compares with traditional large-scale nuclear plants that require a minimum six licensed operators for three reactors. This innovation is enabled by NuScale’s proprietary platform called the Highly Integrated Protection System (‘HIPS’). The HIPS platform provides a robust safety platform to monitor NPMs and help protect NuScale SMR-based power plants from potential cybersecurity attacks.
Technology-Enabled Operational Features
NuScale’s design innovations and best-in-class safety case create several technology-enabled operational features that no other carbon-free generation source can claim. These features address a host of critical industry needs with respect to grid resiliency and reliability and provide customers with related commercial benefits that other power generation solutions do not provide. Select features of the NuScale SMR-based power plants include:
No Requirement for connection to the grid: The NuScale SMR-based plant is the only commercial nuclear power plant approved by the NRC without requiring any connections to the transmission grid for safety. This allows off-grid operation such that NuScale SMR-based plants can be sited in the proximity of industries needing electricity and process heat. It also enables a NuScale SMR-based plant to replace a coal fired power station located at the end of a single transmission line.
First Responder Power: The NuScale SMR-based power plant would remain at power, ready to immediately sell electricity to the grid when the grid is back online, making it a first responder to the restoration of the transmission grid.
Black-Start Capability: A NuScale SMR-based power plant can start up from cold conditions without external grid connections. This NuScale design capability is a first-of-a-kind for the nuclear industry.
Island Mode Power: A single NPM can supply all the ‘house load’ electricity needs of the plant while also continuing to provide power to a local industrial customer or mission critical facility without external grid connection via a micro-grid connection.
Highly Reliable Power: The 12-module power plants, that produce 924 MWe of power, will be able to provide 154 MWe to mission critical facilities, such as data centers with 99.95% availability over the 60-year life of the plant. In the event of a catastrophic loss of offsite grid and disruption of transportation infrastructure, a 12-module power plant will be able to provide up to 120 MWe to a mission critical facility micro-grid for at least four years without refueling.
Design Validation, Testing and Manufacturing Trials
NuScale’s safety design has been validated through rigorous testing of critical components, such as fuel assemblies, control rod and control rod drive mechanisms and the integral helical coil steam generators. NuScale has constructed an electrically heated, one-third scale, high-pressure and temperature integral thermal-hydraulic test facility that demonstrates the operation of the entire nuclear steam supply system and safety systems. NuScale testing programs has been audited by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Long-lead items for the first six NPM upper reactor vessels, including forgings, tubing, tube bending machines, and weld materials has been received at the manufacturing site at Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction Company, Ltd., the company’s manufacturing partner. Manufacturing trials for key components, such as steam generator tubes and vessel cladding processes have been completed.
In addition, the company has proven the ability to safely operate 12 NPMs from a single control room by building and operating a full-scale simulated control room. Through comprehensive testing in this simulator, NuScale has shown that the demands on the reactor operators are significantly reduced compared with traditional large reactors, as a result of the simplicity of the design, advancements in digital controls, and the fact that NuScale’s design requires no operator-initiated safety functions for all design basis events. Through comprehensive analyses, demonstrations and audits, the NRC has approved NuScale’s conduct of operation such that three licensed operators can safely operate a 12-module plant without the need for a Shift Technical Advisor, a key safety-related role required by the NRC for all existing large-scale nuclear plants.
Products and Services
NuScale has determined that it operates in a single segment and will periodically reassess that determination as it nears commercialization and deployment of its NPMs.
NuScale Power Modules and NSSS Equipment
The company’s core technology, the NuScale Power Module (‘NPM’), can generate 77 MWe and is premised on well-established nuclear technology principles, with a focus on the integration of components, simplification or elimination of systems, and use of passive safety features.
A customer seeking to deploy a NuScale SMR-based power plant will be granted a license from NuScale to construct, operate, maintain and decommission the plant. NuScale will also provide design and nuclear regulatory licensing basis information necessary for the customer to obtain regulatory approval to construct and operate the power plant.
Sale of Equipment, including NuScale Power Modules. NuScale expects to sell to the customer major nuclear-engineered equipment. This will consist of the NPMs, the reactor building crane, nuclear fuel, module assembly and handling equipment and other equipment associated with the nuclear steam supply system and nuclear fuel handling and storage. NuScale expects to provide the manufacturing and delivery of modules to the customers’ power plant site on a contracted basis. NuScale also expects to receive payment related to the fabrication of the NPMs coincident with the order of materials and commencement of manufacturing so that no working capital will be required from NuScale for work-in-progress or finished inventory.
Services
The company will also offer customers a diversified suite of services throughout the life of the power plant, beginning approximately five years prior to a plant’s commercial operation date. Pre- and post-commercial operation date service offerings provide customers with critical services related to the licensing, design, development, construction, operation and maintenance of the power plant. As a first mover and developer of the power plant’s nuclear technology, the company is well positioned to be a trusted service provider. As such, the company anticipates its services will have high penetration rates and will provide consistent, recurring revenues that could become significant once a large number of NuScale SMR-based plants are in operation.
The company’s services include:
Regulatory licensing support, including in the United States preparation and prosecution support for the customer’s desired regulatory approval regimes under either 10 CFR, Part 50 or Part 52 pursuant to NRC regulations;
Start-up testing and commissioning support;
Accredited training programs to support initial and ongoing power plant operations;
Management of all aspects of the NRC required inspections, tests, analysis and acceptance criteria process;
NPM mechanical handling;
Initial and ongoing fuel bundle loading and movement;
Design engineering management during commercial operation;
Operations and maintenance program management, including regulatory compliance reporting support;
Procurement and spare parts management;
Nuclear fuel management, including reload analysis; and
Outage planning and execution support.
Customers
NuScale, with its global strategic partner ENTRA1, has a strong pipeline of potential customers consisting of governments, political subdivisions, state-owned enterprises, investor-owned utilities and other technology and industrial companies, both in domestic and international markets, considering the deployment of an ENTRA1 Energy Plants with NuScale SMRs inside. The company’s end-markets can be broken down into two general subsets: baseload generation and industrial applications.
Growth Strategy
The company’s key strategies include replacing carbon intensive coal-fired power plants and as an alternative to new-build gas-fired generation; developing its international customer interest as it foresees a significant customer demand over the long-term to be outside of the United States; continue making technology advancements; and continuing to explore the development of innovative new products based on its core NPM technology.
Supply Chain
The company has strategically executed supply agreements with its critical supply chain partners that allow it to order key NPM components. The company continues to focus on its partnerships with suppliers, such as Doosan Enerbility Co., Ltd., Precision Custom Components LLC, Sarens Nuclear & Industrial Services, LLC, Curtiss-Wright Corporation, and IHI Corporation, among others, which it expects to build components of NPMs to its specifications. Other key suppliers include Framatome, SA (fuel assemblies), Honeywell International Inc. (control systems), Paragon Energy Solutions (protection systems), Sensia LLC, Mirion Technologies, Ultra Energy (sensors and instrumentation), Trillium Flow Technologies, Conval (valves), and PaR Systems, Inc. (reactor building crane).
Partnerships
Fluor: Fluor, a leading global EPC firm, is the largest stockholder in NuScale and collaborates with NuScale on plant design and is a provider of engineering, project management, procurement and construction services. A number of the strategic investors, including Fluor has business collaboration agreements with NuScale, under which the strategic investors have rights to perform engineering, procurement, construction and other specified services for NuScale.
DOE: The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has granted NuScale four separate awards to develop, certify and commercialize the company’s SMR technology. DOE-funded research in 2003 helped accelerate the development of NuScale’s SMR prior to forming NuScale in 2007. In addition, NuScale has ongoing collaborations with DOE labs, including the Idaho National Lab, Argonne National Lab, Oak Ridge National Lab and Pacific Northwest National Lab.
ENTRA1 Energy: NuScale is aligned with ENTRA1 as its commercialization/developer partner for NuScale SMRs. Their ENTRA1 Energy Plants with NuScale SMRs inside are the ideal solutions addressing the challenges and meeting the objectives for the customer. The ENTRA1 Solution was developed to specifically address the key needs of nuclear energy deployment projects, lessons learned from past projects, and most importantly the real-world requirements, constraints, and considerations of utilities, off-takers and stakeholders. The ENTRA1 Solution is a ‘one-stop-shop’ integrated offering to deployment that proactively combines facility design and construction, development, financing, licensing, manufacturing and operations in a framework that delivers new dispatchable, carbon-free baseload generation capacity within acceptable cost, time and risk profiles for utilities, off-takers and stakeholders.
ENTRA1 Energy Plants with NuScale SMR technology inside is a unique and exclusive model that allows it to provide a one-stop-shop energy solution to customers globally.
Supply Chain Partners and Strategic Investors: NuScale has a global network of strategic investors and supply chain partners that the company expects to play an integral role in bringing its technology to market around the world. In addition to Fluor, existing strategic investors and supply chain partners include Doosan Enerbility Co., Ltd., Sargent & Lundy, LLC, Sarens Nuclear & Industrial Services, LLC, JGC Holdings Corporation, IHI Corporation, GS Energy Corporation and Samsung C&T Corporation.
Collaboration with Academic Institutions: NuScale has benefited from independent research, peer-reviewed studies and testing conducted by and with academic institutions, including Oregon State University, Boise State University, Colorado School of Mines, University of Houston, University of Idaho, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Kansas State University, University of Maryland, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Michigan, Missouri University of Science and Technology, Morgan State University, University of Nevada Las Vegas, North Carolina State University , POLIMI (Italy), University of Sheffield (U.K.), University of Tennessee, Texas A&M, Utah State University, University of Utah, University of Wisconsin and University of Wyoming.
Other Collaboration: NuScale has been working with the International Atomic Energy Agency and regulators in Canada, Japan, Poland, Romania, the U.K. and Ukraine, and will be or are supporting the company’s customers’ engagement with regulators in other international jurisdictions. The company expects that its strategic relationships with governmental agencies will help facilitate the licensing of its SMR in the United States and abroad, and that the company’s relationships with experienced private companies, which has offices and projects in countries with potential NuScale customers, will allow it to reach customers globally.
Intellectual Property
As of December 31, 2024, NuScale had been issued 478 patents globally, and had 194 pending patents. These 672 issued or pending patents, filed across 21 jurisdictions, including in the U.S., protect key aspects of the company’s technology and demonstrate the continued growth of its intellectual property portfolio.
Approximately one-third of the company’s patent portfolio relates to its safety system, one-third relates to power production and the remaining third to other categories, such as software and to the reactor module, operability, modularity and inspection.
Regulation
The company has had significant interaction with safety regulators and energy ministries in many of the countries where there is significant customer interest. For example, it has worked through material parts of the Vendor Design Review process with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission; it has completed a technology assessment conducted by the Office of Nuclear Regulation in the U.K.; it completed a licensing gap analysis, comparing select local, IAEA, and Western European Nuclear Regulators’ Association requirements against the NuScale design, with the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate in Ukraine; and it has performed an analysis of NuScale SMR-based plant safety, economy, and maneuverability under a study funded by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
In addition to nuclear safety regulation, NuScale is subject to other nuclear regulatory controls, such as export control, nuclear material safeguards and non-proliferation restrictions and liability insurance regimes (e.g., Price-Andersen Act, the 1960 Paris Convention, the 1963 Vienna Convention, and the 1997 Convention on Supplementary Compensation).
NuScale’s business is subject to, and complies with, stringent U.S. import and export control laws, including the Export Administration Regulations (‘EAR’) from the Bureau of Industry and Security, which is part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, and regulations issued by the DOE.
History
NuScale Power Corporation was founded in 2007. The company was incorporated in 2007.
