The Tennessee Valley Authority plans to submit a construction permit application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a small modular reactor at the Clinch River nuclear site in Oak Ridge, Tenn. by June 2025.
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) informed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in an April 17 letter of notification of intent. TVA intends to submit the construction permit application (CPA) for a BWRX-300 small modular reactor (SMR) at the site.
TVA said the purpose of the letter was to provide a licensing submittal schedule to assist in the NRC’s planning for the review of a CPA. TVA intends to submit its first parts of the application, which includes the Clinch River Nuclear Site Environmental Report, this month, while sending the rest of it by June 2025.
While TVA said it has not authorized the deployment of a SMR at the Clinch River site yet, it said the submission of its CPA is “an important step to de-risk the licensing aspect of a potential, future SMR deployment,” as stated in the letter.
