ML25218A094
| ML25218A094 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Byron, Braidwood  |
| Issue date: | 08/06/2025 |
| From: | Scott Wall NRC/NRR/DORL/LPL3 |
| To: | Seawright B, Steinman R Constellation Energy Generation |
| References | |
| EPID L-2024-LLA-0072, EPID L-2024-LLE-0019 | |
| Download: ML25218A094 (1) | |
Text
From:
Scott Wall To:
Seawright, Brian A: (Constellation Nuclear)
Cc:
Steinman, Rebecca L:(Constellation Nuclear)
Subject:
Braidwood and Byron - Delay in Issuance of License Amendment and Exemptions in Support of Transition to Framatome GAIA Fuel (EPID Nos. L-2024-LLA-0072 and L-2024-LLE-0019)
Date:
Wednesday, August 6, 2025 6:10:24 AM By letter dated May28, 2024 (Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) Package Accession No.ML24149A125), as supplemented by letters dated April21,2025 (ML25111A257), and May1, 2025 (ML25121A230),
Constellation Energy Generation, LLC (Constellation) submitted a license amendment request (LAR) to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC, the Commission) for Braidwood Station, Units1 and2 (Braidwood) and Byron Station, Units1 and2 (Byron). The licensee requested revisions to Technical Specifications (TS) to allow the use of Framatome GAIA fuel at Braidwood and Byron. Since the GAIA fuel uses M5Framatome fuel rod cladding, the licensee also included an exemption request from portions of Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) Section50.46, Acceptance criteria for emergency core cooling systems for light-water nuclear power reactors, and 10CFR Part50, AppendixK, ECCS [Emergency Core Cooling System] Evaluation Models, as Attachment18 to the LAR.
On July 10, 2025, Constellation indicated that the planned penalty values provided as part of a response to SNSB-RAI-1 in the April 21, 2025, supplement need to be revised. As of the date of this email, Constellation has not provided a supplement to address the issue. The purpose of this email is to officially inform you that the NRC did not complete its review by June 18, 2025, nor will it be able to complete the reviewed within the metric goal of August 11, 2025, as a result of delays associated with Constellation providing the new supplement. To account for this unforeseen delay in the schedule, based on the information provided in your submittal, as supplemented, and the impact of the assumed updated SNSB-RAI-1 response on the regulatory review, the NRC staff plans to complete this review by August 31,2025. If there are additional emergent complexities or challenges in our review that would cause changes to this forecasted completion date or significant changes in the forecasted hours, the reasons for the changes, along with the new estimates, will be communicated during the routine interactions with the assigned project manager. The change in the milestone schedule for the LAR was discussed with the Director for the Division of Operating Reactor Licensing, who approved the schedule change.
If you have any questions, please contact me at (301) 415-2855 or e-mail at Scott.Wall@nrc.gov.
Scott P. Wall Senior Project Manager Division of Operating Reactor Licensing Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation 301.415.2855 Scott.Wall@nrc.gov