A cutaway of the BWRX-300 SMR design. (Image: GVH)
Coinciding with the March 19 White House meeting between President Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae, the Department of Commerce announced three new energy deals as part of a Japan-U.S. Strategic Investment initiative. Two of the deals involve the construction of natural gas generation facilities. The third, with an estimated value of as much as $40 billion, involves the construction of GE Vernova Hitachi (GVH) BWRX-300 small modular reactors in Tennessee and Alabama.
“The groundbreaking commercial deployment of the advanced SMRs in the U.S. will serve as a tremendous next-generation stable power source, stabilizing electricity prices for American people and strengthening the Japan-U.S. leadership in global technological competition,” according to the Commerce Department.
Strategic investments: The three energy deals result from a $550 billion trade agreement between the United States and Japan, made last year to “accelerate economic growth, bolster critical supply chains, and strengthen U.S. national and economic security.” The deals are characterized as “strategic investments [that] target critical energy infrastructure and expand domestic power generation through advanced nuclear and natural gas hubs, stabilizing prices for Americans and making energy more affordable.”
Under the SMR project, GVH—a company that was established in 2007 as a joint venture by Japan’s Hitachi and the United States’ GE Vernova (formerly General Electric)—would deploy its 300-MWe BWRX-300 SMRs at unidentified sites in Tennessee and Alabama. The total capacity of the deployed units would be 3 GW.
BWRX-300 projects: The newly announced U.S. deployments add to GVH’s growing number of projects for the BWRX-300, a boiling water reactor that incorporates advances developed by GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy for the gigawatt-scale ESBWR (Economic Simplified Boiling-Water Reactor) in the early 2000s.
Construction began last May on the first project—Ontario Power Generation’s Darlington New Nuclear Project—where commercial operation is expected in 2030.
Last July, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission accepted for review the Tennessee Valley Authority’s application to construct a BWRX-300 at the utility’s Clinch River site in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The NRC stated at the time that it expects to reach a decision on that review within 17 months.
Earlier this March, GE Vernova and Hitachi entered into a memorandum of understanding to identify opportunities for the commercial deployment of the BWRX-300 in Southeast Asia. The companies, through their joint ventures, will also look for opportunities to strengthen the SMR supply chain for BWRX-300 deployment in the region. That agreement was signed during the Indo-Pacific Energy Security Ministerial & Business Forum in Tokyo in the presence of Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum and Japan’s Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Ryosei Akazawa.
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