NNSA releases Request for Information for industry input on an AC100 Deployment Demonstration

WASHINGTON – Today, the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) released a Request for Information (RFI) for industry input on an AC100 Deployment Demonstration to address the need for a new domestic uranium enrichment capability. This AC100 deployment demonstration will provide a limited early production capability, demonstrate one of the available centrifuge technologies, and reduce risk to meeting the NNSA defense mission requirements. 

The deployment demonstration will provide NNSA with data required to determine which technology or technologies may be deployed for the full range of NNSA defense mission requirements. This effort is consistent with NNSA’s approach to meet its defense mission requirements by incrementally deploying centrifuge technologies, with candidates including the AC100 centrifuge and the Domestic Uranium Enrichment Centrifuge Experiment (DUECE) centrifuge being developed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). NNSA’s incremental approach enables the phase-in of low-enriched uranium (LEU) production capacity as soon as possible to ensure timely delivery of LEU for defense mission requirements. NNSA has not made a final uranium enrichment technology down-select decision at this time.  

NNSA is committed to establishing a new domestic uranium enrichment capability for defense mission requirements. An AC100 Deployment Demonstration is an important step toward meeting defense mission requirements in a way that provides the best value to the government. 

The RFI is posted on SAM.gov (search for AC100 Deployment Demonstration for Unobligated LEU Enrichment). NNSA intends to review these responses expediently and issue a Request for Proposals to complete the deployment study as soon as possible.