Nuclear Energy

US developer Aalo Atomics has announced it is partnering with Idaho Falls Power in a project aiming to deploy seven factory-built Aalo-1 microreactors, totalling 75 MWe of generation.

The Aalo-1 microreactors will be constructed at the company's reactor factory and headquarters in Austin, Texas. "The reactors for this project could be the first factory-built commercial microreactors in this country," Aalo Chief Technical Officer Yasir Arafat said. "This approach will allow significantly higher predictability in quality, cost, and schedule than today's large-scale plants, which, at best, take nearly a decade to build."

Aalo said its memorandum of understanding with Idaho Falls Power will deliver clean, dependable power to the city of Idaho Falls and will "open the door for surrounding communities to harness the benefits of advanced nuclear technology". Idaho Falls Power will use part of the microreactors' output, with the remaining power being made available to surrounding municipalities and other commercial applications.

Municipal electric utility Idaho Falls Power currently operates, owns and operates five hydropower plants along the Snake River, which provide about one-third of the electricity used in the city of Idaho Falls. It also owns a "small" solar installation, but purchases most of the balance of its power from the Bonneville Power Administration. The utility said it is "negotiating a power purchase agreement with Aalo Atomics" under which Aalo would lease land for the life of the project, up to 80 years, at Idaho Falls Power's new Energy Research Park, where it recently began construction of a 17.5 MWe natural gas plant.

Aalo said its choice of Idaho Falls was strategic, building on the region's rich history of nuclear innovation and ongoing development, and strong public support for nuclear.

Earlier this year, Aalo announced it had completed the conceptual design of the Aalo-1 - a factory-fabricated 10 MWe sodium-cooled microreactor using uranium zirconium hydride fuel elements. It is working on the construction of a non-nuclear test reactor (Aalo-0), at its Austin HQ, and plans to build its first nuclear reactor - the Aalo Experimental reactor (Aalo-X) - at Idaho National Laboratory as part of its phased approach to development and deployment.

In line with this development philosophy, the MoU with Idaho Falls Power stipulates that the project will only proceed to full construction once specific cost and uncertainty milestones are met, Aalo said, protecting both parties from potential setbacks. Aalo is also pursuing other parallel commercialisation paths.

"This phased approach allows us to minimise risks while still pushing the boundaries with new nuclear technology," Aalo CEO Matt Loszak said. "We've built in multiple layers of risk reduction so that both partners can move forward with confidence."

Aalo said it was moving forward with plans to secure regulatory approval from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, with the Idaho Falls project "slated to go online before the end of the 2020s" - although Idaho Falls Power has said the project "is not expected to come online before 2030".