Holtec named two additional partners Tuesday in its pursuit to develop a small modular reactor – Chicago Bridge & Iron and Scana subsidiary South Carolina Electric and Gas.
As in its previous application for Department of Energy funding for SMR development, CB&I and SCE&G will contribute expertise to the SMR-160 project. A press release emphasized their ongoing work building new Westinghouse AP1000 reactors at the V.C. Summer and Vogtle plants. Holtec announced a similar memorandum of understanding with engineering firm URS Corp. just before submitted its proposal for the DOE funding at the beginning of this month. Holtec expects contributions from CB&I and URS will shave a year from its design development schedule.
"We should note that the combined resources of the SMR-160 team constitutes over 80 percent of the professional work force in the U.S. presently engaged in new nuclear, which makes the SMR-160 development effort a truly national undertaking,” said Holtec's executive in charge of the project, William S. Woodward.
The companies plan to develop the reactor in partnership with the NuHub economic development organization in South Carolina. While it previously worked with NuScale Power, as well, NuHub earlier this year chose the SMR-160 as its exclusive SMR project. Both NuScale and Westinghouse are also in the running for the remainder of $452 million in DOE money, after Babcock & Wilcox won the first SMR funding award last fall.