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.
The submission of the letter came a day after a public meeting held on April 16 featuring the NRC Office of Nuclear Regulation and TVA licensing manager for new nuclear programs Ray Schiele. According to the NRC website, the purpose of the April 16 meeting was “to help ensure alignment on the acceptability of new changes to the Clinch River CP [construction permit] application and the timing of supplemental information availability,” as stated in the meeting details on the website.
A summary of the meeting is expected to be made available next month, according to an NRC spokesperson.
In 2022, TVA partnered up with GE Hitachi to support TVA’s planning and early licensing for a potential deployment of a BWRX-300 SMR at its Clinch River nuclear site.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) proposed plans in February 2025 to allocate $50 million to support TVA’s SMR project. Lee’s proposal came a month after a TVA-led coalition submitted an $800 million grant proposal to the Department of Energy for development of a SMR.
