Press Release

Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction has come in on development of HTGR (High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor), diversifying SMR (Small Modular Reactor) business where it is actively working on.

Doosan entered into a contract on August 27, 2021 with X-energy in the United States who is developing HTGR SMR to perform engineering service for manufacturing study of major equipment. Under this contract, Doosan will support designing SMR by performing a study for optimum design in consideration of manufacturability and conducting mock-up tests for critical manufacturing processes. Coolant of HTGR is helium gas while coolant of existing nuclear power plants is water.

X-energy is developing Xe-100 of which generation capacity is 320MWe (80MWe x 4 modules) using TRISO particle fuel. Process heat of high temperature around 600℃ which Xe-100 produces can be used as heat source for various industries and can produce clean hydrogen economically.

“SMR is rapidly emerging in the world energy market because it contributes to carbon neutralization for confronting the climate change crisis.” said Na Ki-yong, Head of Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction's Nuclear Business Group division. "Through participating in from the design stage of X-energy’s HTGR, Doosan plans to participate in manufacturing of major equipment. In addition to PWR SMR business in progress, this HTGR SMR enables us to diversify SMR business.”

US DOE is supporting development and demonstration of HTGR to measure climate change. DOE selected X-energy for ARDP1 in October 2020, providing $80 million in initial funding. In total, DOE will invest approximately $1.23 billion in X-energy’s project over the seven-year period for this demonstration. Last April, Energy Northwest, Grant County Public Utility District and X-energy, LLC signed a memorandum of understanding establishing a mutual partnership to evaluate, develop and build a commercial Xe-100.

1. ARDP (Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program): US DOE’s funding program to support development and demonstration of advanced reactor, DOE selected X-energy and TerraPower as demonstration projects in October 2020.

▲Martin Van Staden, Vice President of X-energy, and Jongdoo Kim, Vice President of Doosan Heavy, sign an agreement at the X-energy headquarters located in Rockville, Maryland.