Track: B1. Empowering Resilience with Technology and Design

Background/Objectives

California’s power grid is susceptible to disruption from increases in extreme weather due to climate change.  Existing work is focused on expanding the capacity and increasing the resiliency of California’s electrical grid using conventional electricity generation sources (such as solar, wind, natural gas, etc.).  At UN Climate Change Conference in United Arab Emirates (COP28), the United States joined a declaration to triple nuclear energy capacity by 2050.  The purpose of this project is to determine how nuclear power might be integrated into California’s electrical grid over the next two decades.

Approach/Activities

This project is a cross-laboratory collaboration between Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).  LLNL’s existing capacity expansion model for the California grid is responsive to climate impacts, and outputs optimal modifications (within model assumptions) to meet policy goals.  Policy goals of interest for this project include resilience to extreme weather events, reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, and non-proliferation equities.  We are currently incorporating the possibility of various small modular reactor (SMR) design and usage scenarios from ORNL. 

Results/Lessons Learned

The results from this project include feasibility and economic forecasts on building small modular reactors in California.  The capacity expansion modeling work will directly provide recommendations on types and locations of SMRs based on grid load, resiliency, and security/non-proliferation requirements.  Outputs from the model can also be used to provide feedback to SMR designers on performance and economic targets that would improve adoptability.