The award marks a significant milestone, as NuScale already has certain components of 12 power modules in production. We anticipate that nuclear plants that deploy NPMs will feature one common control room that supports up to 12 NuScale Power Modules, each capable of generating up to 77 megawatts of clean, carbon-free power.

Under the contract, Paragon will complete the non-recurring engineering and design deliverables for three critical instrumentation and control systems built on the HIPS platform. The Module Protection System (MPS) is a nuclear safety-related reactor protection system that safeguards each individual NPM. The Safety Data Interface System (SDIS) is an augmented quality, post-accident monitoring system that provides operators with essential plant data in the event of an incident. The Plant Protection System (PPS) is a non-safety-related system responsible for control room habitability functions such as HVAC. The contract also includes Independent Verification and Validation services for MPS development, an important step in qualifying safety-critical software for nuclear applications.

"Paragon has been a valuable technology partner in the development of the HIPS technology, advancing the digital instrumentation and control systems that are essential to safe and reliable plant operations," said John Hopkins, President and Chief Executive Officer of NuScale Power. "This partnership helps us to achieve the goal of delivering reliable, carbon-free power to our customers while ensuring the highest level of safety."

"This contract represents the culmination of years of collaboration between Paragon and NuScale, and we are proud that our HIPS platform is at the heart of the NPM's protection systems," said Doug VanTassell, President and CEO of Paragon. "The work we are doing on MPS, SDIS, and PPS is foundational to bringing the first SMR of its kind into operation, and there is no greater validation of our technology than being entrusted with the safety-critical systems of the most significant new reactor design in a generation."

HIPS was purpose-built to meet today's cybersecurity requirements and the complexity of next-generation reactor designs. The platform delivers analog-like reliability while incorporating modern diagnostics that reduce operations and maintenance costs, and its architecture can be configured from a single channel up to a full four-division Reactor Protection System. HIPS also employs Model-Based Design to integrate system behavior and design documentation into a single environment, streamlining development and regulatory review — including NRC Safety Evaluation Report (SER) approval of its topical report in 2017, co-developed with NuScale.