PacifiCorp Forecasts Need for Two Additional Natrium Reactors in New Regulatory Filing
March 31, 2023
BELLEVUE, Washington – March 31, 2023 – Today, PacifiCorp released its 2023 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) which selects two additional Natrium reactor and energy storage systems1 into the company’s generation resource mix by 2033. This IRP includes 1,500 megawatts of advanced nuclear energy from three total Natrium reactors.
“The Natrium reactor offers carbon-free, dispatchable energy plus gigawatt hour scale energy storage, making it the ideal technology for utilities to deploy as they plan to meet decarbonization targets,” said Chris Levesque, TerraPower President and CEO. “We are pleased with the additional Natrium units in this year’s IRP and look forward to continuing to work with PacifiCorp as we bring good-paying jobs and decades-long generating assets to local communities.”
Last fall, TerraPower and PacifiCorp announced a joint study of up to five additional Natrium reactors by 2035. The inclusion of two additional Natrium reactors in the IRP is the next step in PacifiCorp’s ongoing modeling and planning activities. TerraPower and PacifiCorp will also continue to explore the possibility of deploying additional Natrium units by 2035. The location of these two additional Natrium plants in this IRP are in Utah; however, both companies will engage with local communities before any final sites are selected.
TerraPower is currently bringing the Natrium demonstration plant to Kemmerer, Wyoming, where a PacifiCorp coal-fueled power plant is slated for retirement. In partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy, as part of their Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP), the Natrium demonstration plant will be a fully operating, commercial unit and will be online this decade, making it the first advanced reactor with gigawatt hour scale energy storage on the grid. TerraPower and PacifiCorp are committed to bringing the Natrium technology to market and providing reliability and stability to the grid as well as to energy producing communities.
The Natrium technology is a 345-megawatt sodium-cooled fast reactor coupled with a molten salt-based integrated energy storage system that can boost power output to 500-megawatts for more than five and a half hours to serve peak demand; making it the ideal technology to pair with energy grids that have high penetrations of renewable resources.
[1] A TerraPower and GE Hitachi technology