NuScale Power and Prodigy Clean Energy have announced a new concept design for a transportable and marine-based small modular reactor (SMR) power generating facility.
Prodigy is a Canadian company specialising in the development of Transportable Nuclear Power Plants (TNPPs). The company has been working with SMR developer NuScale since 2018 to develop an SMR marine facility that can generate reliable, grid-scale electricity at coastal locations.
Prodigy’s SMR Marine Power Station (MPS) is scalable and can accommodate between one and twelve NuScale Power Modules (NPM) for a total maximum output of 924MWe.
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According to Prodigy, the marine facility is transported to the required location, fixed in place within a protected harbour and connected to shoreside transmission and process heat systems.
Nuclear fuel is loaded in the NPMs after which power generation can begin.
At the end of its life, the marine facility would be transported to a marine-accessible center for decommissioning.
“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 decarbonise their economies, including replacing coal-fired plants – many of which are located at the coast,” said Mathias Trojer, Prodigy Clean Energy president and CEO.
“NuScale is extremely proud to continue this partnership with Prodigy, as utilisation 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 CEO.
Manufacturing and outfitting of the facility take place in a shipyard. Minimal site preparation is required, according to Prodigy, and standardised design allows for cheaper manufacturing for a wide variety of sites.