Energy Systems & Techno-Economics
Our work in energy systems and techno-economics looks at how nuclear technologies fit into real energy systems, not just how they perform on their own. As electricity grids add more variable renewable generation, nuclear plants will need to find value in flexible operation, clean heat, water production, storage, microgrids, and other applications beyond steady baseload electricity. These questions sit at the boundary of nuclear engineering, energy systems modeling, economics, and operations research.
Projects in this area use techno-economic analysis, optimization, reactor and power-cycle modeling, and systems-level design to study how nuclear technologies could be built and operated more competitively. Current work includes nuclear-renewable cogeneration, multi-unit SMR operation, microreactors in islanded microgrids, open architecture approaches to reactor cost reduction, and cost modeling for emerging fusion concepts. The common thread is practical: understanding what makes nuclear energy easier to deploy, more useful to the grid, and better matched to future energy needs.
Integrated Solar & Nuclear Cogeneration of Electricity & Water using the sCO2 Cycle
We are working with a multi-disciplinary team at UW-Madison, in particular Esolab, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Westinghouse to design and model an Integrated Energy System for co-generation of electricity and clean water (through desalination).
We are interested in how we can combine Concentrating Solar Power and Advanced Nuclear Reactors (in our case, LFR) to maximize the benefits of both and best variable electricity demand. Concentrating Solar Power production varies with the sun, and nuclear power is most economic when generating all the time, so we look at ways to use energy storage and co-produce clean water to make best use of available power. The sCO2 cycle can improve efficiency, and also allows us to make use of low temperature co-generation to produce clean water without compromising electricity production.
So far in this project, we have developed schemes to couple nuclear and solar energy through the sCO2 cycle. We have also developed optimized strategies for the dispatch of a nuclear reactor integrated with thermal energy storage to help determine whether such a system will pay for itself, which is a complicated trade-off. Our future work will extend this analysis to nuclear/solar dispatch schemes as shown in the image above.
This work is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy, through the Nuclear Energy University Program.
Open Architecture for Nuclear Cost Reduction
In a collaboration with the University of Wyoming, UC Berkeley, Idaho National Laboratory, and TerraPraxis, we will develop a method for open architecture–enabled standardized design of modules and interfaces across advanced reactor designs and evaluate the extent to which this is possible.
Together with our collaborators, we will develop a method for open architecture–enabled standardization across sites; identify how to overcome the commercial and legal challenges to collaboration and information sharing among companies; and evaluate, through quantitative modeling, how open architecture can reduce costs.
This work is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy, through the Nuclear Energy University Program.
Innovative Enhanced Automation Control Strategies for Multi-unit SMRs
We are working with University of Michigan (lead), University of Tennesse-Knoxville, INL and NuScale to develop automation control strategies for multi-unit SMRs, in particular the NuScale SMR (which consists of up to 12 modules at a single site).
Together, we will develop a hierarchy of automation control strategies for Flexible Power Operation (FPO). This entails innovative work in the area of automation for control of systems necessary for providing (1) supervisory control for load following, (2) tactical control for prognostic health management (PHM), and (3) strategic control for the operation of multiple units at a single site. Developing a link between PHM and FPO maneuvers enables optimized operation to support system and component longevity.
This work is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy, through the Nuclear Energy University Program.
In our current work, we are developing component cost functions for the multi-unit optimization using the VERA core simulator. We are also developing a strategic level multi unit optimization strategy to load follow optimally and time the outages of multi unit SMRs.
Microreactors in Microgrids
We are evaluating the cost-benefit for deployment of microreactors within clean energy microgrids. While microreactors are anticipated to be significantly more expensive than solar or wind, they could conceivably supply firm power to complement renewable generators under certain circumstances. In our recent research, we examine the impact of location on the attractiveness of including a microreactor within an islanded microgrid.
Fusion Cost Modeling and Sensitivity Analysis
Facilitated through the Fission-Fusion Hybrid project, the fission techno-economics analysis code ACCERT has been extended for use on fusion projects. ACCERT is developed by Argonne National Laboratory, and has been used for previous ReTI projects across multiple use cases. ACCERT enables sensitivity studies, and can be integrated with other physics codes through use of the WATTS framework also developed at ANL. The included figure shows a sensitivity analysis of total direct capital cost of stellarators and tokamaks to changes in superconductor material unit cost based on PROCESS models that were ported into ACCERT.