Concept for floating small modular reactor promises safe and affordable energy
NuScale Power LLC and Prodigy Clean Energy Ltd have announced a new conceptual design for a transportable and marine-based small modular reactor (SMR) power generating facility that provides dramatically improved transportability, manufacturability, economics, safety, and security.
The updated concept will be used for engagements with utilities, regulators, and shipyard manufacturers.
Prodigy is a Canadian company specializing in the development of Transportable Nuclear Power Plants (TNPPs). NuScale and Prodigy have been collaborating since 2018 under a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the joint goal of bringing a competitive North American SMR marine facility to market – a product that can generate safe, affordable, and reliable electricity at grid-scale at any coastal location worldwide. Carbon-free power generated by these facilities would support at scale electrification, as well as production of zero carbon fuels, such as hydrogen and ammonia, to decarbonize the transport and shipping sectors.
Similar to the terrestrial NuScale VOYGR™ SMR power plant, Prodigy’s SMR Marine Power Station™ (MPS) is scalable, being able to house from 1 to as many as 12 NuScale Power Modules™ (NPM) for a total output of 924 MWe. After transport to the deployment location, the marine facility would be fixed in place within a protected harbor and connected to shoreside transmission and process heat systems. Nuclear fuel would be loaded in the NPMs as the last step of the commissioning process before beginning power generation. Operations, security, and fuel handling protocols are equivalent to those used for a traditional nuclear power plant under existing nuclear regulations. At the end of its life, the marine facility would be transported to a marine-accessible center for decommissioning.
“NuScale is extremely proud to continue this partnership with Prodigy, as utilization of a transportable marine facility will enable us to deploy the NuScale Power Module at more locations around the world,” said John Hopkins, NuScale Power President and Chief Executive Officer. “By combining Prodigy’s technologies with NuScale’s safe, scalable, and innovative SMR design, we are confident in our ability to deliver our carbon-free and cost-competitive SMR technology globally.”
“It is our privilege to partner with NuScale to expand global access to clean, baseload energy generation. By packaging the NPM into Prodigy’s marine facility, we will offer countries a near-term solution to address energy security and to decarbonize their economies, including replacing coal-fired plants – many of which are located at the coast,” said Mathias Trojer, Prodigy Clean Energy President and Chief Executive Officer
Compared to terrestrial deployments, the benefits of using Prodigy’s technologies to deploy the NuScale VOYGR SMR power plant begins with manufacturing and outfitting of the entire marine facility in a shipyard, enabling expedited delivery. Further advantages include a significantly reduced capital expenditure; accelerated project schedule; minimized site preparation; reduced environmental impact; unlocked project financing structures that are not typically available to conventional site-constructed nuclear plants; and simplified and expedited decommissioning and site recovery. The marine facility’s design is standardized to allow for deployment at a wide variety of sites and for serial manufacturing.
