Tennessee Valley Authority says that Small Modular Reactors will generate enough power to fuel 60 data centers
The largest public utility in the United States, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), has signed a deal for the development of six Small Modular Reactors that will provide up to 6 GW of new, nuclear power generation.
The TVA operates in a seven-state region, where its SMR partner, Entra1 Energy, will select sites for the six “energy plants,” as the latter company calls them. Entra1 Energy is the exclusive partner for SMR company NuScale; its energy plants will have NuScale’s SMRs inside them.
“This collaboration could provide enough energy to power the equivalent of approximately 4.5 million homes or 60 new data centers—at a time when hyperscale data centers, artificial intelligence (AI), semiconductor manufacturing, and other energyintensive technologies are driving unprecedented growth in electricity demand,” the partners said in a release.
Entra1 indicated that it will develop and own the power infrastructure, and it will sell the output to the TVA under future power purchase agreements. The partners said that the deal is “an important first step to advance deployment of advanced nuclear technology,” and noted that it aligns with the Trump administration’s Energy Dominance plan.
The partners also said that they are “identifying opportunities to work with other federal agencies and explore potential sites with new nuclear generation and joint gas-fired capabilities.”
“TVA is leading the nation in pursuing new nuclear technologies, and no utility in the U.S. is working harder or faster than TVA. This agreement with Entra1 Energy highlights the vital role public-private partnerships play in advancing next-generation nuclear technologies that are essential to providing energy security — reliable, abundant American energy — and creating jobs and investment across the nation,” said TVA President and CEO Don Moul.
NuScale expected a commercial SMR deal this year
During NuScale’s most recent quarterly call last month, CEO John Lawrence Hopkins said that his company is “years ahead of the competition, as the only SMR technology approved by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,” and the only one in the manufacturing stage.
Providing energy for advanced data centers and AI is the biggest opportunity for NuScale’s technology, Hopkins said on that call — although he added that NuScale’s flexible SMR design enables the energy generated by one plant to be designated for multiple uses.
Hopkins had said on the August call that NuScale was optimistic that it would receive an order this year for its power modules.
NuScale sells its SMR power modules for installation in Entra1’s energy plants. Entra1 handles the financing and can either develop the project and hand it off to an owner/operator; operate the resulting plant for an owner; or develop, own and operate the power plant.
Hopkins also mentioned that nuclear power is increasingly receiving bipartisan support in Washington, D.C., with hundreds of million in incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act and an appetite for reducing regulatory timelines and boosting the nuclear supply chain and domestic power sources.
NuScale also recently opened its largest simulator, which replicates a NuScale SMR control room for educational and training purposes, at George Mason University’s Fuse building at Mason Square in Arlington, VA — just outside D.C., and a stone’s throw from Northern Virginia’s Data Center Alley. NuScale has such simulators at 11 other institutions around the world, but the George Mason location is NuScale’s first full-scale, 12-module simulator in the United States.
The company is currently supporting development of an SMR for a utility in Romania. Nuscale says its power modules can be built within a 36-month timeline and have a design life of 60 years.
