US bets heavy on Westinghouse fleet but cost hurdles loom

[Marlin]

US bets heavy on Westinghouse fleet but cost hurdles loom

https://www.reutersevents.com/nuclear/us-bets-heavy-westinghouse-fleet-cost-hurdles-loom

[Core Content]

The United States Department of Energy announced a $17.5 billion loan program to support the construction of ten Westinghouse AP1000 reactors across five sites. The initiative aims to fund long-lead equipment procurement and accelerate project schedules by up to three years through serial production.

Serial manufacturing is intended to reduce per-unit costs and supply chain bottlenecks, supporting federal goals to expand nuclear capacity. However, analysts caution that historical cost overruns at projects like Vogtle present financial risks for utilities and developers participating in the new fleet deployment.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced a $17.5 billion nuclear power supply chain loan program in June to support the goal of having ten 1.1 GW AP1000 reactors under construction by 2030, in pairs at five sites. Westinghouse and a utility or energy company will each be required to invest $500 million to jointly own each project. Building a...

New federal financing for 10 Westinghouse AP1000 reactors could boost the nuclear supply chain but promised reductions in costs and construction times will not be straightforward, experts told Reuters Events.

The logo of Westinghouse Electric Corp. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier.

Building a fleet of AP1000s is a central plank of President Trump's goal of quadrupling U.S. nuclear generating capacity to 400 GW by 2050, and would help boost power supplies for data centres.

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