TerraPower has awarded contracts for the first Natrium plant reactor enclosure system (RES) for its Natrium sodium-cooled fast reactor. Among multiple deals ENSA (Equipos Nucleares S.A.) will produce the reactor head; Doosan Corporation will supply the core barrel, guard vessel and internal supports for the reactor; HD Hyundai will manufacture the reactor vessel; and Marmen will build the rotating plug. The company says these awards advance the development, construction, deployment and commercialisation of America’s first advanced reactor. The Natrium design is a 345 MWe sodium-cooled fast reactor with an integrated energy storage system able to rapidly boost output to 500 MWe for more than five and a half hours. The goal is to allow seamless integration with renewable energy and an overall increase in grid resiliency. The Natrium Reactor Demonstration Project is currently under construction in Kemmerer, Wyoming, and is the only advanced reactor project in the Western Hemisphere to move from design into construction, having begun non-nuclear construction on the site this year.
“The Natrium design is a game-changing technology, and assembling the right team of vendors to construct the first reactor speaks to TerraPower’s commitment to commercializing this technology and ensuring advanced nuclear fulfills its role in addressing surging global energy demand,” said TerraPower President and CEO Chris Levesque.
