“The Utility Power Reactor Incremental Scaling Effort (UPRISE) program announced by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in March will help nuclear companies uprate their reactors and bring dormant facilities back online…

Since the 1970s, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has approved 171 uprates, resulting in a ‌gain of around 8 GW as of January 2022. The NRC expects to receive applications for 32 additional uprates by 2032 that would increase the power capacity of the existing nuclear fleet by a further 2.4 GW.

Uprates are ‘certainly the most cost effective and immediate way to increase nuclear capacity, and it capitalizes on infrastructure we already have,’ Rian Bahran, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Reactors at the DOE, told Reuters Events.

UPRISE aims to add 2.5 GW of new nuclear capacity by 2027 and a total of 5 GW by 2029 – equivalent to adding five new nuclear reactors ​to the grid without the multi-billion-dollar cost of new construction.”

From Reuters.