Utilities consider nuclear microreactor as low-carbon district heating source

Utilities and energy consumers seeking to decarbonize may soon have an alternative source of building heat: on-site nuclear reactors.

The Electric Power Research Institute, or EPRI, teamed with the Nuclear Energy Institute, Constellation Energy Corp., Duke Energy Corp. and other stakeholders to explore how nuclear energy can be paired with district energy systems. The project to develop a road map for nuclear district heating is part of a broader EPRI initiative, "Nuclear Beyond Electricity," researching novel uses for nuclear energy.

Nuclear-powered heating is not a new concept. Nuclear cogeneration stations have been in use for decades worldwide, particularly in Russia, delivering electricity to the grid and process heat to local heating networks. But the EPRI initiative seeks to deploy a different technology.

"Certainly, if there's a plant nearby a population area, that could be an option. What we're really focused on is using newer designs called microreactors that would be located on the campus itself," said Jeremy Shook, principal project manager at EPRI, using a university district heating system as an example.

Microreactors vary in definition but tend to range from about 1 MW to 20 MW of thermal energy, according to the U.S. Energy Department. They can be used for heating, cooling or electricity generation.

The need arises as communities with district heat networks face limited options for decarbonizing their heating and cooling systems, Shook told S&P Global Commodity Insights. One option is to go completely electric by installing heat pumps, an expensive retrofit for areas with outdated infrastructure. Another option is to swap fossil fuels for low-carbon fuels, such as green hydrogen or renewable natural gas.

"We see nuclear as a third option," Shook said. "As of right now, we don't see it necessarily as the most cost-competitive option, but we do see it as probably one of the best, if not the best, in terms of addressing the need for decarbonization and reliability and resiliency."

The project's goal is not to develop the technology — something companies are already working on, Shook said — but to figure out how it can be deployed at scale. This includes identifying any technical issues or any regulatory, licensing or permitting policy needs.

University of Illinois looks to replace gas-fired plant

One working group member, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, has already sought to deploy nuclear energy on campus as a research tool and a heat source. The university submitted a notice of intent to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2021 in hopes of replacing its gas-fired Abbott power station with an Ultra Safe Nuclear Corp. microreactor. The technology will integrate with existing energy infrastructure to provide heat and power on campus.

The deployment of microreactors does not necessarily mean bypassing the local gas or electric utility.

"We see a couple of different models where the utilities can get involved," Shook said, noting that most of EPRI's members are electric utilities. "And I'll say that a number of our members have already started looking at this or are actively interested in this."

One model is to have the district owner and end user, such as a hospital or college campus, subcontract the operations and maintenance to a utility. Alternatively, the utility may own or operate the on-site facility and enter into a purchase agreement with the end user.

The EPRI project comes amid several project announcements in the nuclear energy industry outside the conventional power plant. In July, a coalition of public- and private-sector organizations launched the Nuclear Hydrogen Initiative in an effort to deploy nuclear energy for hydrogen production. On Aug. 9, Dow Inc. partnered with X Energy LLC to install a small modular reactor to generate electricity and process heat for one of its Gulf Coast facilities.

Though there is no formal consensus on the difference between a small modular reactor and a microreactor, Shook said, both refer to factory-made reactors as opposed to conventional reactors which are built on-site. However, small modular reactors tend to have higher capacity.

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