GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy
🇺🇸 Wilmington, US · Active
Also known as GEH, GVH
GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GVH), formerly GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, is a nuclear alliance of GE Vernova and Hitachi established in 2007 and based in Wilmington, North Carolina. It designs boiling water reactors, in which water boils in the core and the steam drives the turbine directly: the Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR), the passively cooled ESBWR and the 300 MWe BWRX-300 small modular reactor. According to GVH, full-scale construction of the first of four planned BWRX-300 units at Ontario Power Generation's Darlington site in Canada began in 2025, and in December 2025 the Department of Energy granted the Tennessee Valley Authority $400 million towards deploying the design. GVH also developed the Natrium sodium-cooled reactor with TerraPower and supplies fuel through Global Nuclear Fuel.
- Sector
- Fission
- Technology
- Boiling water reactor, Sodium fast reactor
- Fuel
- Low-enriched uranium, High-assay low-enriched uranium
- Role
- Reactor developer
Terms
- Boiling water reactor
- Light water boils directly in the core and the steam drives the turbine: one loop instead of two, simpler but with an activated steam circuit. Water is again both coolant and moderator, and fuel is low-enriched uranium oxide, as in a PWR.
- Sodium fast reactor
- Liquid sodium coolant with a fast, unmoderated neutron spectrum. Sodium carries heat superbly at atmospheric pressure, but burns in air and reacts violently with water. Large sodium-cooled cores can have a positive sodium void effect that the core design must offset. Fuel is typically metal alloy or mixed-oxide.
- Low-enriched uranium
- Uranium enriched to 5% uranium-235 or less, typically 3 to 5%: the range almost all power reactors use. Formally, anything below 20% is low-enriched; this site holds the band from 5% to just under 20% separately as HALEU, with its 5 to 10% part also tagged as LEU+. A fuel above 5% uranium-235 belongs in one of those, never here, whatever a developer's own materials call it.
- High-assay low-enriched uranium
- High-assay low-enriched uranium: uranium enriched to between 5% and just under 20% uranium-235, as the US Department of Energy defines it. It is still formally low-enriched, because the international line for highly enriched uranium is 20%, which is why many designs specify 19.75%. The binding supply constraint for many advanced reactor designs. The 5 to 10% part, which carries lighter US physical-security requirements than material from 10% up, is also tagged as LEU+. A developer calling fuel in that band 'LEU' is making a labelling choice, not describing a different enrichment.
Designs
| Design | Developer | Approach | Electrical output per unit | Size class | Licensing stage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR) ABWR | GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy | Boiling water reactor | 1,350 to 1,460 MWe claimed | Large reactor | No milestone recorded |
| BWRX-300 | GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy | Boiling water reactor | 300 MWe planned | Small modular reactor | Construction permit issued for one plant: CNSC licence to construct one BWRX-300 at the Darlington New Nuclear Project · Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission · 2025-04-04 |
| Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR) ESBWR | GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy | Boiling water reactor | 1,520 MWe planned | Large reactor | No milestone recorded |
| Natrium | TerraPower with GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy | Sodium fast reactor | 345 MWe planned | Large reactor | Construction permit issued for one plant: NRC construction permit CPAR-1 issued for Kemmerer Power Station Unit 1 (Natrium) · US Nuclear Regulatory Commission · 2026-03-09 |
People
- Jason CooperPresident & CEO
- Craig RansonInstalled Base CEO