TVA and Entra1 to deploy 6 GW of NuScale SMRs
The Tennessee Valley Authority and Houston, Texas–based energy production company Entra1 Energy recently announced the signing of an agreement to collaborate on the deployment of six new nuclear power plants equipped with NuScale small modular reactors.
If all goes according to plan, these plants will supply up to 6 gigawatts of new nuclear power generation across TVA’s seven-state service region.
The details: Under the deal, Entra1 will finance and own the six new nuclear power plants (which the company calls Entra1 Energy Plants) and then sell the output to TVA under future power purchase agreements. As of now, no tentative timelines or cost analyses have been shared with the public, though NuScale has previously said their SMR technology could be deployed as early as 2029.
TVA marked energy-intensive technologies like artificial intelligence, hyperscale data centers, and semiconductor manufacturing as key drivers for the unprecedented growth in energy demand that led to this new plan. The company’s press release also gives a nod to the Trump administration’s “energy dominance agenda and focus on America’s energy security.”
About the collaboration, Don Moul, TVA president and CEO said, “This agreement with Entra1 Energy highlights the vital role public-private partnerships play in advancing next-generation nuclear technologies.”
Building on the past: This new agreement between TVA and Entra1 builds on an existing partnership between Entra1 and NuScale that was established in 2022. Today, Entra1 is NuScale’s exclusive global strategic partner, and the companies together form a “one-stop-shop” for nuclear projects.
NuScale, naturally, is responsible for building and deploying its SMR, while Entra1 builds, finances, owns, and operates the energy plants powered by those SMRs. While the companies pitch their plants as ideal for hydrogen production, water desalination, and industrial heat production, in TVA’s case, it appears they will only be used for energy capacity.
On its website, Entra1 says that it is currently delivering on a 30-GW SMR project pipeline, though the company has yet to provide a comprehensive list of the locations, progress, and details of its other projects.
The reactor: Entra1’s plans are set to be powered by the NuScale Power Module (NPM), a 77-MWe integral pressurized water reactor that consists of a single containment vessel comprising the reactor core, steam generators, and pressurizer.
This design eliminates reactor coolant pumps, large bore piping, and a bevy of other systems required by conventional reactor designs, giving the reactor a “high level of passive safety and low risk profile” according to Kent Welter, chief engineer of testing and analysis at NuScale, who recently gave a detailed presentation on the NPM’s design and safety case to the American Nuclear Society’s Risk-informed, Performance-based Principles and Policy Committee.
The NPM can be configured into three different plant types featuring 4, 6, or 12 reactors, rated at 308, 464, and 924 MWe, respectively. (Nuscale received an uprate approval for the NPM from the NRC in May.) With a target goal of 6 GW, it is likely that all 6 plants will feature the 12-module design, totaling 5.5 GW of new capacity.
The history: Deploying 72 new reactors is an ambitious plan—one that immediately brings to mind the Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP), a partnership between NuScale and Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) to build six NPMs at Idaho National Laboratory. Like TVA, UAMPS is a government-owned energy utility (although UAMPS is owned at the state level while TVA falls under federal jurisdiction).
After nearly a decade of work, NuScale and UAMPS mutually agreed to abandon the project in 2023 with no reactors built. The CFPP was beset by cost increases, changes in reactor design, timeline delays, and project scope, but ultimately it was an insufficient level of subscription from UAMPS customers that killed the project, according to NuScale president and CEO John Hopkins.
At the 2023 ANS Winter Meeting, only a few days after news of the CFPP’s cancellation broke, ANS Executive Director/CEO Craig Piercy invited Hopkins onstage to talk about what the future looked like. Hopkins explained that “a lot of good” came from the CFPP, from reaching key regulatory milestones to learning hard lessons. “We're going to take this to the next step. We're going to be successful,” he said.
A year later, Hopkins is echoing those same sentiments, saying in a press release that Entra1 and NuScale are “ready as partners to meet America’s surging demand for reliable, carbon-free baseload power.”
