The US Department of Energy (DOE) has announced a pilot programme to speed up the testing of advanced nuclear reactor designs and potentially see plants achieve criticality next year.

The DOE said it had issued a request for application (RFA) and is seeking qualified US reactor companies interested in constructing and operating their test reactors outside of the federally owned national laboratories using the DOE authorisation process.

It said the move represents an important step towards streamlining nuclear reactor testing and ensuring at least three reactors achieve criticality by 4 July 2026. Criticality is the state where a nuclear chain reaction becomes self-sustaining.