Bill Gates-backed Terrapower has decided to give a challenge to Rolls-Royce in the United Kingdom market for the deployment of nuclear reactors.
Terrapower has submitted a letter to the UK’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) which establishes its intention of entering the Generic Design Assessment (GDA) process.
It should be noted that the company’s Natrium reactor is currently being developed in the United States.
This is the first step taken by Terrapower with the intent to deploy its Natrium nuclear reactor in the international market.
“I am incredibly excited to begin of the process of licensing the Natrium technology in the UK,” said Chris Levesque, TerraPower President and CEO.
“TerraPower is committed to deploying Natrium units globally and has been in active discussions in the UK for years. There is immense interest and opportunity for the United States and United Kingdom to cooperate on deploying advanced nuclear plants over the coming decade.”
Terrapower’s bid for UK’s GDA process
Terrapower says that the UK’s GDA process will build on its successful regulatory endeavors and allow for the company to establish deployment timelines for Natrium sites in the country.
The regulatory milestones with its first Natrium plant, currently being developed in the United States, will be used as the basis of its GDA application. These milestones include the pre-application meetings it held with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
The successful submission and acceptance of the construction permit application (CPA) to the NRC is also an important milestone, and so is the over a years’ worth of review with the NRC on the company’s CPA and Topical Report Submittals, with the NRC recently announcing they are ahead of schedule on the review.
The company had also recently been awarded a state-level construction permit from the State of Wyoming; where the first Natrium project is being built.
The bid by Terrapower can be seen as a challenge to Rolls-Royce which is hoping to get its mini-nuclear reactors accepted for UK’s nuclear energy resurgence.
Alongside these two, GE Hitachi, Holtec and Westinghouse have also been participating in the tender approved by the UK government, as per a report by Telegraph. The winner of the tender process is slated to be announced by mid-2025.
Terrapower’s Natrium nuclear reactor
The Natrium technology from Terrapower features an advanced nuclear design with a 345 MW sodium-cooled fast reactor with a gigawatt-scale molten salt-based energy storage system.
Terrapower says that the molten salt-based energy storage system can boost the system’s output to 500 MWe for more than five and a half hours when needed.
“This addition allows a Natrium plant to integrate seamlessly with renewable resources and leads to faster, more cost-effective decarbonization of the electric grid while producing dispatchable carbon-free energy,” as per a press release by Terrapower.
The nuclear firm says that the Natrium plant is the only advanced reactor design with this unique feature.
TerraPower is the first nuclear developer with a permit application for a commercial advanced reactor submitted to the US NRC. The application was submitted in March 2024 and is on track, for the firm says it is on track for approval in December 2026.
The Natrium design enables the company to start non-nuclear construction onsite during the NRC review.