The Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory (INL) extended the deadline for the request for application (RFA) for testing at its National Reactor Innovation Center’s (NRIC) Demonstration of Microreactor Experiments (DOME) facility to July 17.
NRIC’s DOME, which is located at INL, RFA’s original deadline was slated for June 19. This updated deadline is due on July 17 at 5:00 p.m. Mountain Time.
According to the updated solicitation from Tuesday, interested parties must submit an application no more than 50 pages and in a PDF format. The package should include a master document and deliverable list.
Testing at DOME is expected to be funded by the applicants, which must show financial capability. The reactor applications must also meet several thresholds, such as a mature reactor design with a safety basis documentation and recognized nuclear material plans that include disposal or lifecycle pathways for all nuclear materials.
Questions pertaining to the updated RFA solicitation should be directed to Samuel Reiss at Samuel.Reiss@inl.gov or AnnMarie Marshall at Ann.Marshall@inl.gov.
Applicants are applying for the opportunity to begin testing in July 2027. DOE has already selected Radiant’s Kaleidos and Westinghouse’s eVinci reactors to be the first two reactors to be tested at the microreactor test bed facility, which opened in April.
Radiant has already begun its one-year testing of its demonstration Kaleidos microreactor at the DOME facility this summer. The company also recently received its first tri-structural isotropic – or TRISO fuel at the facility, putting it on track to start full power, full temperature testing, it said.
According to the solicitation, the first reactor experiment, conducted by Radiant, should be completed by July 2027.
DOME was built from the repurposed Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-II) containment structure and stands 100 feet tall and 80 feet in diameter. EBR-II was a sodium-cooled fast reactor that was designed, constructed and operated by DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory.
Construction and refurbishment for the DOME test bed facility began in 2023.