RFI - Advanced Nuclear Reactors | DE FOA 0002115

Opportunity Information: Apply for DE FOA 0002115

The Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) issued this notice as a Request for Information (RFI) focused on advanced nuclear reactors, rather than as a funding solicitation. In practical terms, it is a market and technology scan intended to gather ideas, technical perspectives, and capability statements that ARPA-E can use for internal program planning. It is not accepting applications for grants or cooperative agreements, and it does not represent a current Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA). Any information submitted is intended to inform potential future ARPA-E programs and, as stated, will be used for planning purposes without attribution.

The central goal ARPA-E is probing is whether advanced reactor technologies and, especially, advanced operational concepts could drive nuclear plant operating costs down to levels comparable to natural gas combined cycle power plants. ARPA-E frames this as a need to reduce operating costs per megawatt-electric (MWe) by more than an order of magnitude, which is an aggressive target meant to force fundamentally different approaches rather than incremental improvement. The agency emphasizes that reaching this kind of cost profile likely requires semi-autonomous plant operations, which would be a major shift away from the traditional nuclear operating model that depends heavily on large, specialized staffing for operations, maintenance, safety, and security.

The RFI outlines the underlying problem it wants respondents to address: existing U.S. nuclear facilities are primarily conventional light water reactors (LWRs), and their competitiveness is increasingly pressured by comparatively high operations and maintenance (O&M) costs. A major driver of these costs is staffing intensity, since nuclear plants typically require extensive human oversight and compliance-driven processes. ARPA-E notes that advanced reactor designs expected to make up the next wave of deployments could inherit similar O&M cost structures if the industry does not adopt substantially different approaches to operations, maintenance, and control. The issue is presented as even more acute for small modular reactors (SMRs) and microreactors because smaller units cannot spread fixed staffing and operational overhead across as many megawatts, reducing or eliminating the economies of scale that benefit large plants.

To spark useful input, ARPA-E specifically calls out technology areas that could enable highly automated or semi-autonomous nuclear plant operation while maintaining safety and reliability. The RFI highlights interest in predictive maintenance and autonomous maintenance approaches that reduce unplanned downtime and minimize labor-intensive inspection and servicing. It also seeks fault detection and isolation algorithms that can rapidly identify abnormal conditions, pinpoint the source, and support safe corrective action with minimal operator burden. Novel sensor systems are another priority, especially sensors that can survive harsh environments, provide more informative signals, reduce calibration and maintenance needs, or enable new forms of condition monitoring that are not common in today’s nuclear plants. Alongside sensing, ARPA-E is interested in data analytics, plant dynamics modeling, and advanced control systems that could close the loop between monitoring, diagnosis, and automated control actions in ways that meaningfully reduce staffing requirements and streamline operations.

A major theme in the notice is that autonomy in nuclear operations is unconventional and has limited precedent within the nuclear community, which is why ARPA-E explicitly invites ideas from outside traditional nuclear energy organizations. The agency is effectively signaling that breakthroughs may come from sectors that already deploy autonomy or high-reliability automation at scale, such as aerospace, advanced manufacturing, chemical processing, robotics, industrial controls, or large-scale data center operations. This cross-industry emphasis suggests ARPA-E is looking for transferable methods, architectures, and verification strategies that could be adapted to nuclear plants, rather than solely nuclear-specific innovations.

The RFI also emphasizes the need for advanced modeling and simulation capabilities that can explore a wide range of potential data streams and operating scenarios. ARPA-E is interested in simulators that can help determine which sensors and data channels are most valuable, what control strategies perform best under normal and off-normal conditions, and how different automation concepts might affect safety margins, availability, and staffing needs. Related to this, the notice expresses interest in test loops and experimental facilities that can be used to investigate, validate, and de-risk autonomous control, operations, and maintenance concepts. That includes infrastructure where new sensors, diagnostic algorithms, and control approaches can be demonstrated under realistic thermal-hydraulic, materials, or operational conditions before being proposed for integration into actual reactor systems.

Administratively, the opportunity is listed under Funding Opportunity Number DE-FOA-0002115 and categorized under science and technology research and development (CFDA 81.135), with eligibility described as unrestricted in the sense that any type of entity may provide input. The original RFI window opened March 26, 2019 and closed April 25, 2019. While the listing contains fields commonly associated with financial assistance mechanisms (such as grants and cooperative agreements), the text repeatedly clarifies that this specific notice is not offering funding and is only collecting information to shape potential future ARPA-E programming.

Overall, this RFI is best understood as ARPA-E testing the landscape for credible pathways to dramatically cheaper nuclear plant operations through semi-autonomous or autonomy-enabled concepts. It is seeking concrete technical ideas, enabling technologies, validation approaches, and insights from both nuclear and non-nuclear industries that could make advanced reactors, including SMRs and microreactors, economically competitive by sharply reducing O&M costs driven by labor, maintenance practices, and conventional control-room-centric operating paradigms.

• The Department of Energy, Advanced Research Projects Agency Energy in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "RFI - Advanced Nuclear Reactors" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 81.135.
• This funding opportunity was created on Mar 26, 2019.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Apr 25, 2019 This is a Request for Information only. This RFI is not accepting applications for financial assistance. THIS NOTICE DOES NOT CONSTITTUE A FUNDING OPPORTUNITY ANNOUNCEMENT (FOA). NO FOA EXISTS AT THIS TIME.. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $1.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

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