Dominion Energy says it has issued a request for proposals to ‘leading SMR companies’
Dominion Energy, the largest utility in the US state of Virginia, has issued a request for proposals from leading small modular reactor nuclear technology companies to evaluate the feasibility of developing an SMR at the company’s North Anna nuclear power station.
The company said SMRs could help meet growing electricity demands while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It did not say which companies it had approached.
Dominion chief executive officer Robert Blue told a news conference at North Anna that nuclear power already makes up 90% of Virginia’s carbon-free electricity.
A new state law allows Dominion to explore the use of SMRs with associated costs capped at $1.40 per month for a typical residential customer. Blue said he expects the cost impact to be much lower.
The company operates seven large-scale reactors at four sites: Millstone in Connecticut, North Anna and Surry in Virginia and Summer in South Carolina.
The North Anna site, which is being earmarked for SMRs, is about 90 miles southwest of the US capital Washington in Louisa County, Virginia. It has two Westinghouse pressurised water reactors units of 948 MW and 944 MW that began commercial operation in 1978 and 1980.
A 2020 state law set a target for 100% of Virginia’s electricity to come from carbon-free sources by 2050.
Speaking at Wednesday’s news conference, Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, said it is important to embrace new technologies for power generation.
‘We Need All Of The Above’
“We can’t build enough wind,” Youngkin said. “We can’t build enough solar in order to power the Virginia of the future. We need all of the above.”
There are no SMRs in operation in the US, but according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) global interest in SMRs has been increasing due to their ability to meet the need for flexible power generation for a wider range of users and applications and replace ageing fossil fuel-fired power plants.
According to the IAEA, there are more than 80 SMR designs and concepts globally. Most of them are in various developmental stages and some are claimed as being near-term deployable.
There are currently four SMRs in advanced stages of construction in Argentina, China and Russia, and several existing and newcomer nuclear energy countries are conducting SMR research and development.
In the US, a project involving NuScale to build the first SMR, in Idaho, was terminated last year following cost increases and a lack of subscribers.
A number of pilot projects have begun. In August 2022 Tennessee Valley Authority signed an agreement with BWRX-300 developer GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy to deploy SMRs at Clinch River
TerraPower, a company founded by Bill Gates, has broken ground for a commercial SMR plant in Wyoming.
