We respect the Department of Energy’s (DOE) decision to make only one award at this time from four applications it received in May of this year for the Small Modular Reactor (SMR) Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA). We applaud the DOE’s decision to seek additional FOA awardees in another round of solicitation which is consistent with the Department’s role to serve as a catalyst and not a pre-selector of the best technology. Holtec International is hopeful that the Company will merit an award in the second round of DOE’s solicitation on the strength of our reactor’s unrivaled safety features, cost competitiveness, innovative security features, and operational reliability.
Holtec’s Director of the SMR-160 development program, Dr. William S. Woodward stated, “The deferral of the DOE award will have no adverse impact on our SMR-160 program. We will continue our careful and deliberate technology development effort which befits a program that aims to produce a 21st Century nuclear technology that is unassailably safe and inherently green. Our business and intellectual commitment to the SMR-160 program remain as firm as ever.”
The SMR-160 is Holtec International’s flagship small modular reactor engineered to produce 160 MW of electrical energy (click here for attached brochure). We are most grateful to Holtec’s council of distinguished cadre of experts drawn from the various sectors of the nuclear industry, which serves to advise and critique the details of our SMR-160 design and safety evaluations as they are completed. The council’s role in improving our reactor design has been invaluable. In addition to the Savannah River Site where the DOE has graciously agreed to host (possibly) the first SMR-160, discussions are also underway with a leading nuclear utility to co-locate one or more SMR-160 reactors at an existing plant site.
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