National utility Entergy is considering working with Holtec International to build advanced nuclear reactors at existing generation sites, the nuclear services company announced Wednesday.
Entergy and Holtec have entered into a memorandum of agreement under which the utility will “evaluate the feasibility” of deploying small modular reactors (SMRs) at one or more existing sites within its service area, Holtec said in a press release dated Wednesday. The Camden, N.J.-based nuclear services company is currently developing its own SMR design, known as the SMR-160.
“Entergy will be evaluating Holtec’s SMR-160 system as a means to potentially help us meet our net-zero goals because of its inherent safety, modularity, operational simplicity, small footprint, and the proven light water reactor technologies that undergird it,” the utility’s chief nuclear officer Chris Bakken said in the statement.
Holtec, which has already purchased several shuttered nuclear power plants from Entergy including New Jersey’s Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station and Michigan’s Palisades Nuclear Generating Station, has said that both sites are potential candidates to host an SMR-160. Oyster Creek is the Camden, N.J.-based company’s “number one” choice for such purposes, CEO Kris Singh told Exchange Monitor in April.
Meanwhile, Holtec on Tuesday submitted the second part of a Department of Energy loan application to support its SMR development, the company said Wednesday. Holtec told DOE that, among other things, federal funds would be used to build a four-unit SMR-160 plant and a new “supersize factory” for manufacturing its advanced reactors.
DOE approved the first part of Holtec’s loan application in March.
The SMR-160 is one of 10 advanced reactor projects getting support from DOE’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program. Holtec has said that the first of its advanced reactor sites could be operational by 2030.
