GE Hitachi (GEH) has hopes for its BWRX-300, the 10th evolution of GE’s boiling water reactor design. The 300 MW water-cooled reactor design is based on the company’s Economic Simplified Boiling-Water Reactor (ESBWR), which is already licensed by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

GEH Executive Vice President of Advanced Nuclear Sean Sexstone refers to the BWRX-300 as a “simply made reactor” because it uses the same equipment and fuel that are already in GE reactors around the world.

“Ninety-five percent of it has been done,” said Sexstone in an exclusive interview with Power Engineering. “Maybe these are a little smaller in scale, but very proven.”

This is one reason why GE Hitachi believes the BWRX-300 can become the cheapest, quickest and lowest-risk SMR to market.

Sexstone said the company took the basic ESBWR design and simplified it, including several design safety features which are new to boiling water reactor technology.

The safety relief valves, deemed the most likely cause of a loss of coolant accident (LOCA), were eliminated in the design. The isolation condenser system (ICS) provides overpressure protection in accordance with ASME BPV code, section III, class 1 equipment (Status Report – BWRX-300 – GE Hitachi and Hitachi GE Nuclear Energy). In order to accommodate this change, the design pressure has been raised by 20% from previous boiling water reactors. GE Hitachi has also implemented integral isolation valves, which close to stop the loss of coolant in an accident scenario.

In general, because of their relatively small physical footprints, reduced capital investment and more flexible siting, SMRs are viewed as an antidote to the cost overruns that have plagued large-scale nuclear projects.

Sexstone said GE Hitachi has been able to eliminate roughly 90% of the concrete and steel from the ESBWR, leaving a total power plant footprint smaller than a football field. The company projects the BWRX-300 to have up to a 60% lower capital cost per megawatt compared with the typical water-cooled SMR.

But despite policy support and market growth for new nuclear, the economics are daunting.

First of a kind (FOAK) SMR costs could be as high as $8,000 per kilowatt (kW) and as low as $6,000 per kW, according to industry estimates cited by Wood Mackenzie. Analysts there expect that FOAK costs will be at the high end of this range, and could be even higher, as developers build out early-stage projects.

Sexstone told Power Engineering supply chain partnerships will be crucial to success.

“If we’re going to build two, three hundred or more of these [BWRX-300s], I think it’s going to be crucial that we have really good partnerships and we’re able to grow the supply chain in Canada, in the U.S., and globally,” he said.

In March 2023 the company announced a technical collaboration agreement with Ontario Power Generation (OPG), Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and Synthos Green Energy (SGE) aimed at speeding up the regulatory process and deployment.

Through the agreement, the partners will invest a total of around $400 million in the development of the BWRX-300 standard design and detailed design for key components, including reactor pressure vessel and internals. The collaborators are forming a Design Center Working Group with the purpose of ensuring the standard design is deployable in the U.S., Canada, Poland and beyond.

“The goal is, once that standard is set, it doesn’t change,” said Sexstone. “Then we can work on driving down the cost curve as we deploy multiple reactors.”

He added: “We have to get this first one or two right.”

OPG aims to deploy the BWRX-300 at its Darlington New Nuclear Project site in Clarington, Ontario. A commercial contract between GE Hitachi, Ontario Power Generation, SNC-Lavalin and Aecon was inked in January 2023. In 2022 the Canada Infrastructure Bank committed C$970 million ($713 million) toward the project in the bank’s largest investment in clean power to date.

This would be the first grid-scale SMR in North America. Site preparation is currently underway, with GE-Hitachi expecting approval to begin construction by late-2024. The reactor could be built by late-2028 or early-2029.

“We’re getting the site ready, finalizing both standard and site-specific design, ordering long lead engineering equipment important to maintaining the construction schedule,” Sexstone said.

In August 2022, TVA began planning and preliminary licensing for potential deployment of the BWRX-300 at its Clinch River Site near Oak Ridge, Tennessee. In June 2022 SaskPower announced that it had selected the BWRX-300 for potential deployment in Saskatchewan in the mid-2030s.

GE Hitachi, NuScale and Holtec are among the companies developing water-cooled SMRs. Other advanced reactor technology under development includes the use of nontraditional coolants such as liquid metals, salts and gases.

“We’ve got all these projects starting and funded by the government and private industry to develop new designs,” said Doug True, who is chief nuclear officer of the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI). “It’s just a really exciting time to be in the industry.”

Another boost came from the federal Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which offers a generous tax credit for advanced nuclear reactors and microreactors.

This has helped SMRs become even more attractive to utilities. True said NEI surveyed Chief Nuclear Officers at U.S. utilities in 2022, asking how much advanced nuclear they would need to meet decarbonization goals. He said the cumulative response was greater than 90 GW.

NEI updated the survey following the IRA’s passage and saw about a 10% increase, with personnel saying they’d need about 100 GW in new nuclear.

For another perspective, recent assessments cited in the Electric Power Reserarch Institute (EPRI) Advanced Reactor Roadmap suggest that over the next 10-20 years, the need to deploy advanced reactors in the United States and Canada will rival, and likely exceed, the scale of the entire existing operating nuclear energy capacity in North America.

“There are going to be challenges,” said True. “But the way that other countries have gotten their costs down for nuclear [reactors] is by getting good at building them. These first plants will get there, and we’ll learn, and we’ll get better and better.”

Wood Mackenzie’s modeling shows that if costs fall to $120/MWh by 2030, SMRs will be competitive with nuclear pressurized water reactors (PWRs), gas and coal – both abated and unabated – in some regions of the world.

GE Hitachi (GEH), Ontario Power Generation (OPG), SNC-Lavalin and Aecon have together inked the first commercial contract for a grid-scale small modular reactor (SMR) in North America.

GEH would provide the reactor design, engineering licensing support, construction, testing, training and commissioning for the BWRX-300 SMR, to be located at OPG’s Darlington new nuclear site.

As part of the six-year agreement, SNC-Lavalin said it would also provide OPG with project management, licensing, engineering, design, procurement, construction support and commissioning, as well as digital delivery capabilities in both the nuclear island and balance of plant scopes for the project.

The project at Darlington is expected to come online by the end of the decade, partners have said.

In 2022 the Canada Infrastructure Bank committed C$970 million ($713 million) toward the project in the bank’s largest investment in clean power to date.

The BWRX-300 is a 300 MWe water-cooled, natural circulation SMR with passive safety systems that leverages the design and licensing basis of GEH’s ESBWR boiling water reactor. It is currently undergoing a CNSC pre-licensing Vendor Design Review.

The BWRX-300 leverages a unique combination of existing fuel that is currently used in operating reactors (and does not require HALEU), plant simplifications, proven components and a design based on already licensed reactor technology.  

There is growing global interest in the BWRX-300 in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere in Canada.

In August 2022, Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) began planning and preliminary licensing to potentially deploy a BWRX-300 at the Clinch River Site near Oak Ridge, Tennessee. TVA has entered into a collaboration with OPG to coordinate efforts to move SMR technology forward. In addition, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and CNSC are collaborating on licensing the two projects.  

In June 2022, SaskPower announced that it selected the BWRX-300 for potential deployment in Saskatchewan in the mid-2030s.

In Poland, ORLEN Synthos Green Energy (OSGE) and its partners started the pre-licensing process by submitting an application to Poland’s National Atomic Energy Agency for assessment of the BWRX-300. OSGE said it plans to deploy a fleet of BWRX-300s with the potential for deployment of the first of those units by the end of the decade.

GEH has also begun the licensing process for the BWRX-300 in the U.K.

SaskPower has selected GE-Hitachi’s BWRX-300 small modular reactor (SMR) for potential deployment in Saskatchewan in the mid-2030s.

It comes following a thorough assessment of several SMR technologies. Several key factors included safety, technology readiness, generation size, fuel type and expected cost of electricity.

The assessment process included close collaboration with Ontario Power Generation (OPG) and Calian, an independent engineering firm with extensive experience in Canada’s nuclear industry.

SaskPower won’t decide whether to build an SMR until 2029. There is still a lot of work to be done, including years of project development, licensing and regulatory work. SaskPower is currently evaluating regions that could host an SMR and is expected to identify them later in 2022.

In December 2021, Ontario Power Generation (OPG) selected the GE Hitachi’s BWRX-300 SMR for the Darlington New Nuclear Project in Ontario. The project is expected to be completed as soon as 2028.

The BWRX-300 is a 300 MWe water-cooled, natural circulation reactor with passive safety systems based off the design and licensing of GE-Hitachi’s NRC-certified ESBWR. GE-Hitachi believes the BWRX-300 can become the lowest-risk, most cost-competitive and quickest SMR to market.

As the tenth evolution of the boiling water reactor (BWR), the company says the BWRX-300 represents the simplest, yet most innovative BWR design since GE began developing nuclear reactors in 1955.

Since December 2019, Ontario, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick have been working together to advance SMRs in Canada. Alberta joined the collaboration in April 2021. The provinces released a strategic plan for the deployment of SMRs during an announcement in March 2022 that highlighted how SMRs could provide safe and reliable power to meet communities’ growing needs, create good-paying jobs and help provinces meet their environmental goals.

In December 2021, GE Hitachi, BWXT Canada and Synthos Green Energy announced intentions for BWXT Canada to build parts in Ontario for at least 10 SMRs to be deployed in Poland. The agreement represented approximately $1 billion in contracts for BWXT Canada.

In February 2022, the Tennessee Valley Authority also announced plans to advance GE Hitachi’s BWRX-300 design at its Clinch River Nuclear Site in Tennessee.