Yesterday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced that it has received an application from Westinghouse to renew and update the design certification (DC) for its AP1000 reactor. This application seeks to formally incorporate the lessons learned from the construction of Vogtle-3 and -4 into the design control document (DCD) of the AP1000.

This long-expected submittal builds on previous plans at both the NRC and Westinghouse for the future of gigawatt-scale light water reactor deployments in the United States.