Nation's First Small Modular Reactor Plant to Power Nuclear Research at Idaho National Laboratory

*Editor’s note: This article was originally posted by Idaho National Laboratory.

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Since the start of the nuclear age, with very few exceptions, commercial nuclear power plants have served a single purpose: generating electricity.

Those plants worked well with older power generation and transmission infrastructure – large coal-fired, natural gas or hydroelectric plants, and a relatively simple electrical grid designed to deliver reliable power.

But now, researchers and industry must develop a new generation of nuclear power plants that will operate in an increasingly complex energy landscape.

Renewables such as wind and solar produce intermittent power, and conventional power plants operate best and are more profitable when they operate at full capacity. When plants are forced to operate at less than full capacity, power generation becomes less cost-effective for customers and utilities.

Likewise, cybersecurity attacks, natural disasters and other threats present new challenges to maintaining reliable power into the future.

To meet these challenges, researchers and industry have developed technologies such as advanced microgrids, energy storage and integrated energy systems that divert excess capacity for industrial applications such as hydrogen production.

Next-generation nuclear plants will provide operators with the flexibility to adjust power outputs to match demand, to make crucial decisions about electricity generation and allocation of steam, to repel cybersecurity threats, and to maintain reliable power during natural and man-made disasters.

The Joint Use Modular Plant

To create this next generation of nuclear power plants, the U.S. Department of Energy is working with Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) and NuScale Power to develop the Joint Use Modular Plant (JUMP).

The JUMP program will dedicate for nuclear energy research the first reactor module planned for the Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP), a nuclear power plant that UAMPS plans to build on the Idaho National Laboratory Site in the mid-2020s.

Since JUMP will be the first module fabricated and deployed at the CFPP, UAMPS and the DOE will be looking at ways to improve the efficiency and time required for subsequent module deployments for the CFPP, as well as subsequent advanced reactor deployments that are under consideration in the U.S.

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