Wilmington-based GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy announced steps Monday to further collaborate with Advanced Reactor Concepts LLC (ARC Nuclear) to develop and license the ARC-100 advance small modular reactor, the company announced in a press release.

GE Hitachi intends – through a newly-signed development agreement – to license intellectual property associated with its Power Reactor Innovative Small Module (PRISM) advanced reactor design to ARC Nuclear. The company has also agreed to provide ARC Nuclear, a privately held Delaware company that specializes in small fast reactor technology, access to nuclear infrastructure programs.

The engineering and design work that will support the agreement will occur at GE Hitachi headquarters in Wilmington, according to Jon Allen, spokesman for GE Hitachi in Wilmington. 

“This new agreement recognizes that GEH and ARC Nuclear each have significant experience, investment and intellectual property in sodium fast reactor technology derived from Argonne National Laboratory’s successful EBR-II reactor, which operated for more than 30 years at Idaho Falls, Idaho,” said Jon Ball, executive vice president of Nuclear Plant Projects at GE Hitachi, in the release. “At GEH, we are excited to see how this complementary collaboration will allow us to further accelerate commercialization of this technology with ARC Nuclear.”  

GE Hitachi will also make an in-kind contribution to ARC Nuclear through its agreement to provide engineering and design expertise, officials said in the release.

“Our work to date with the GEH team has validated our expectation of the synergy of combining ARC Nuclear’s senior engineers -- with their deep sodium fast reactor operational and design experience as key members of EBR-II prototype program -- with GEH’s next generation of nuclear engineers and designers with their proven competence in modern nuclear design,” Don Wolf, chairman and CEO of ARC Nuclear, said in the release. “We are clearly seeing how the power of this engineering collaboration and GEH’s infrastructure can give us a leap forward in reducing both time to market and development costs.”

The companies announced a collaboration in March to progress the ARC-100 design for global power generation with initial deployment in Canada. GEH and ARC Nuclear are working to commence a preliminary regulatory review of the ARC-100 by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission through its Vendor Design Review process, according to the release. 

At the same time, a joint GE Hitachi-ARC Nuclear engineering team is working to advance the ARC-100 design.

Officials with GE Hitachi said the company and ARC Nuclear have agreed to re-examine their relationship upon completion of the Canadian Vendor Design Review and give consideration to focus for the ARC-100 beyond Canada.