Final approval of the Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor design should come in May, federal regulators said in a letter to GE-Hitachi released Monday.
The Final Safety Evaluation Report for the Generation III+ design was complete in March, and final rulemaking from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was initially scheduled for September. The Wilmington, N.C., Star-News reported regulators now plan to place the design certification rule before the commissioners in January.
The NRC has said its staff prioritized combined license applications for new nuclear plants and the design certification for the Westinghouse AP1000 reactor, now under construction at Georgia’s Plant Vogtle.
The NRC approved GEH’s amended Advanced Boiling Water Reactor design a few weeks ago, making it the first Generation III plant to meet new aircraft impact resistance requirements. First submitted to the NRC in 2005, the ESBWR design takes the technological developments of the ABWR — currently in operation at plants in Asia — even further. The ESBWR incorporates passive safety features such isolation condensers, a gravity-driven cooling system and other pump-less components. The design is simpler, with fewer systems overall and 25 percent fewer pumps, valves and motors than previous designs. According to GEH, the 4,500 megawatt-thermal reactor also costs 30 percent to 40 percent less to build than other light-water reactors.