NuScale may invest $7.5B in small modular reactor

By Samuel P. Medenilla @sam_medenilla & Jove Marie N. Dela Cruz @joveemarie

e x ecutives of NuScale Power Corp. met with President Ferdinand r Marcos Jr. in Washington d C. on Monday to discuss the study that the company will conduct to identify a suitable site for the said small modular reactor (SMr).

Marcos welcomed the proposal of NuScale, saying the project will help address the shortfall in the country’s power supply.

“We need everything. We just have to have everything and this new technology is something,” the President said during the business meeting.

The SMr is expected to become operational by 2031 and generate 430 megawatts (MW) of electricity.

NuScale is partnering with r azon-led Prime Infrastructure Capital Inc. for the said project.

Company officials were accompanied by enrique r a zor during the meeting which was also attended by government officials including last March the House Committee on Nuclear energy voted to approve a consolidated substitute bill for a comprehensive atomic regulatory framework, creating for the purpose the Philippine atomic reg ulatory Commission.

House Speaker Martin romualdez, Trade Secretary a l fredo Pascual, energy Secretary r aphael l otilla, Special a ssistant to the President Secretary a ntonio l a gdameo Jr., Communications Secretary Cheloy Garafil, and Philippine a mbassador to the US Jose Manuel romualdez.

“a dequate and cheaper energy source of power is crucial to sustaining our robust economic growth. But the President is very much aware that building additional energy generation capacity takes years to accomplish and it is prudent that we should continuously explore alternatives—including the use of nuclear power—to achieve this goal,” romualdez said.

“On our end at the House of representatives, we are working hard to pass measures that would provide the necessary legal framework and policies to encourage the development of alternative power sources in support of the President’s vision for our nation’s energy security,” he said. a mong others, romualdez cited the approval of the Waste-to-energy Bill, which is among the 23 priority measures the House has approved from the 31 bills identified by the l e gislative- e x ecutive a d visory Council (ledaC) as priority measures of the Marcos administration.

There are also several measures in the House currently undergoing committee deliberation that seek, among others, to promote the uses of clean and renewable energy such as solar or wind power.

The Speaker said the meeting with NuScale is “very promising” as SMr is the first and only one of its kind to receive design approval from the US Nuclear regulatory Commission. The company has existing projects in Utah, romania, Indonesia, and Poland.