The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on 25 January completed the Final Safety Evaluation Report for a combined construction and operating licence (COL) for a proposed reactor project, developed by US power utility Dominion on the site of its North Anna NPP, near Mineral, Virginia.
NRC concluded that there are no safety aspects that would preclude issuing the licence and Dominion expects to receive a federal permission to proceed with construction by the end of 2017.
North Anna 3, rated 1500MWe, is not expected to be commissioned before 2028. Dominion already operates two 948MWe pressurised water reactor units on the site, which were commissioned in 1978 and 1980, respectively. The company originally submitted a COL application for the unit in November 2007 but changed several times the favoured technology (first GE-Hitachi's Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR), then Mitsubishi Heavy Industries' Advanced Pressurizsed Water Reactor (APWR), and finally ESBWR again, delaying the approval process.
