Incentives for Nuclear Power Move Forward

On Thursday June 15, 2017, the House Committee on Ways and Means approved H.R. 1551, legislation designed to essentially remove the deadline on eligibility for the nuclear PTC. This bill is not only very important for the four AP1000 nuclear reactors under construction in Georgia and South Carolina, but potentially also for next-generation nuclear plants. These plants can take advantage of the remaining credits left over after the AP1000 projects are completed (from the 6,000 MW available under the current tax credit); the credits would normally expire on January 1, 2021. The bill can be found here.

The day before, on Wednesday June 14, DOE announced nearly $67 million in grants awarded towards advanced nuclear energy research from a series of funding programs. The grants include:

• $37 million under the “Nuclear Energy University Program” to support “university-led nuclear energy research and development projects” and also fund “reactor and infrastructure improvements” towards the nation’s 25 university research reactors;

• $11 million towards three “Integrated Research Projects,” which are complex research projects led by a coalition of “universities, industrial and international research entities, and the unique resources of the DOE national laboratories”;

• $6 million in research towards “advanced sensors and instrumentation, advanced manufacturing methods, and materials for multiple nuclear reactor plant and fuel applications”; and

• $12+ million towards projects taking advantage of “Nuclear Science User Facilities” to “investigate important nuclear fuel and material applications.” Five of these projects are industry-led and thus take advantage of the GAIN Initiative, which provides industry with a means to access facilities and resources “across the DOE complex and its National Laboratory capabilities.”

Authored by Amy Roma and Sachin Desai.