- NuScale Reported to Ink a $1.5 Billion Reactor Equipment Deal with South Korea’s Doosan Enerbility to Build SMRs for Two US Data Centers
- Oklo Partners with Wyoming Hyperscale to Deliver 100 MWe to its Data Centers
- Norsk Kjernekraft Plans SMRs for Norway’s Data Centers
- NuclearN.ai Launches SPARK-mini Open Nuclear AI Model
- Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Using AI for Digital Twin Applications
- NRC Dockets Construction Permit Application for TerraPower’s Natrium Reactor
NuScale’s Reported to Ink a $1.5 Billion Reactor Equipment Deal with South Korea’s Doosan Enerbility to Build SMRs for Two US Data Centers
NuScale and Doosan are reported to be in the final stages of participating in a related and much bigger deal reportedly worth a total of $37 billion deal to supply 24 SMRs to Standard Power, a US information technology infrastructure firm.
NuScale and its financial investor ENTRA1 Energy LLC are reported to be working on details of the deal with Standard Power and, according to KED, an announcement is expected in the next few weeks. As part of the deal, Doosan Enerbility will supply key systems and components including reactors and steam generators. ENTRA1 Energy LLC also is investing in NuScale for applications of nuclear energy for power production, hydrogen production, water desalination, and process heat.
NuScale Questions KED Report
It is not entirely clear that there is an agreed upon term sheet between NuScale and Doosan for the reactors and steam generators in terms of the scope and value of the deal.
In an unexpected response to the media report, NuScale reportedly described the KED report in critical terms calling it “speculative.” In a press statement to the Korea Herald, the spokesperson for NuScale discounted the size of the order for equipment and the number of SMRs expected to be built for US data centers.
“While we do anticipate a substantial order, the precise numbers appear to be based on a vague estimate. For instance, it’s unclear how many SMRs Standard Power has agreed to purchase. Initially, there was mention of a project involving six SMRs, and it seems like this number was arbitrarily multiplied to 24,” the official stated.
“Based on our current understanding and agreements, a single building [data center] can only house up to 12 SMRs. And assuming making two buildings could automatically accommodate 24 SMRs is also not accurate,” he added.
NuScale’s statement muddies the waters about the scope and value of the data center deal. The original NuScale press release last year referred to 24 SMRs, 12 for each data center location. Now it seems things are not so sure. Somehow, NuScale and Doosan are out of alignment with each other on this deal.
Separately, the Korea Herald reported Doosan Enerbility saw its shares soar more than 16% following KED’s news report that it is likely to secure $1.46 billion worth of orders for NuScale Power’s SMR project in the US. Its stock closed at $21.64/share. Doosan Group’s stock also peaked at $160.43/share.
The US stock market is closed for the Memorial Day holiday. In after hours trading, NuScale’s stock closed at 8 PM on Friday 5/24 at $7.85/share after an open that morning at $6.98/share. Volume was 5,754,00 shares. 52 week low $1.81/high $11.21. According to its March 2024 financial report, cash on hand was $132M compared to $216M in March 2023.
Scope of the Standard Power Data Center Project
According to data center trade press reports, Standard Power wants the SMRs for two massive data centers, 12 of them in Ohio and the other 12 in Pennsylvania. Each site will need 12 of NuScale’s 77 MWe SMR for a total at each site of 924 MWe of power for each data center or nearly 2 GWe in all.
NuScale’s 50 MWe design received approval from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in 2020. The regulatory agency accepted NuScale’s application for the uprated design of 77 MWe in August 2023. Approval of the 77 MWe design by the NRC is expected within 24 months’ time or August 2025 more or less.
How Ready is NuScale to Proceed?
For NuScale to place an order, or phased orders over time, for $1.5 billion in nuclear reactor equipment from Doosan, it would have to go to capital markets with a firm book of orders in hand as well as financing for the SMRs from Standard Power and its investor ENTRA1 Energy LLC.
NuScale announced the 24 SMR project for the data centers in October 2023. A month later the company’s first-of-a-kind project to build six 77 MWe SMRs for UAMPS at a site in Idaho was terminated due to rapidly rising costs that thwarted efforts to sign up enough UAMPS members to share in the costs and to subscribe to buy power from a completed project. This setback raised questions about NuScale’s ability to proceed with the data center power project. The commitment by Doosan this week is a major confidence builder in NuScale’s future and for the data center project which will need 24 large, long lead time components such as SMR reactors, steam generators, and related equipment.
By way of background, KED reported that the Doosan deal got traction last month when John L. Hopkins, NuScale’s CEO, visited Doosan’s headquarters in Korea and toured its SMR manufacturing plant. During his stay in Korea, Hopkins met with Kim Jong-du, vice president and head of the nuclear power plant business at Doosan, to discuss future projects, including equipment supply schedules.
Doosan plans to spend $219 million by the end of next year to expand and upgrade its production facilities. A Doosan executive told the Korea Economic Daily, “Once SMR market takes off, Doosan will become the world’s largest foundry player to make smaller reactors under contract.”
History of South Korean Investment in NuScale
KED reported that NuScale, in cooperation with its Korean partners, is scheduled to build Korea’s first SMR in Uljin, North Gyeongsang Province. NuScale’s Korean partners include GS Energy Corp., an energy unit of GS Group, and Samsung C&T Corp., a construction and engineering subsidiary of Samsung Group. GS Energy and Samsung C&T have invested $40 million and $70 million in NuScale.
On April 29, 2019, NuScale Power and Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction Co., (DHIC) Ltd. (Doosan) announced a $44M strategic cooperation to support deployment of the NuScale SMR worldwide. Doosan and its financial partners provided a cash investment in NuScale as part of this strategic relationship. In 2021, the company invested an additional $60 million into NuScale and secured an exclusive right to build core SMR equipment for the US firm.
Doosan will supply long lead time components and other equipment. DHIC is expected to bring its expertise in nuclear pressure vessel manufacturing. Doosan also signed the ‘unit purchase agreement’ through which it will make a cash equity investment in NuScale with Korean financial investors. The terms of the equity deal were not disclosed but it will involve transfer of NuScale stock to Doosan.
In 2023 NuScale Power announced it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Export-Import Bank of Korea (KEXIM) to support NuScale’s small modular reactor (SMR) deployment.
In March 2023, KEXIM and NuScale signed an MOU in which they agreed to financial cooperation in support of deploying NuScale SMRs. KEXIM is the official export credit agency of Korea providing comprehensive export credit and guarantee programs to support Korean enterprises conducting overseas business. According to the announcement, the organization will explore potential opportunities to provide credit facilities to NuScale and facilitate overseas business of Doosan in collaboration with NuScale.
NuScale and Doosan Face Competition
Competition to take gain market share for SMR designs is increasing from TerraPower LLC., X-Energy, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy and Holtec International. TerraPower is offering a 345 MWe sodium cooled advanced reactor. GE Hitachi is offering its BWRX300, a BWR type light water reactor (LWR), and Holtec is offerings is recently upgraded SMR-300 LWR type SMR.
So far, TerraPower is ahead in the race to obtain NRC approval of a new reactor design with the NRC’s acceptance this month of its construction license application. (See story below). The other firms are engaged in prelicensing work with the NRC.
SK Group’s holding firm SK Inc., its energy and battery affiliate SK Innovation Co. and Korea Hydro Nuclear Power Co. (KHNP) last year joined hands with TerraPower, a US SMR developer founded by Bill Gates, to cooperate on the development of next-generation nuclear power technologies. SK Group has invested $250 million in TerraPower. HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering Co. (KSOE) has invested $30 million in TerraPower as part of its push to develop nuclear power plant ships.
KHNP, Korea’s state-run nuclear power operator, is working to develop a Korean-type SMR by 2030. Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co. (Hyundai E&C) and its US nuclear reactor partner Holtec International are also working on an SMR design.
GE Hitachi is relying on BWXT Canada as a key element in its supply chain for the BWRX300.
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Oklo Partners with Wyoming Hyperscale to Deliver 100 MWe to its Data Centers
- Oklo and Wyoming Hyperscale signed a non-binding letter of intent to collaborate on a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement.
- Wyoming Hyperscale will aim to use Oklo’s Aurora powerhouses to power a state-of-the-art data center campus.
The companies have signed a non-binding letter of intent outlining their intent to enter into a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement.
It is the second such agreement that Oklo has signed with a data center firm in recent months indicated a growing focus on the firm’s interest in providing reliable and scalable clean power solutions in response to the increasing demand for electricity driven by global digitalization and artificial intelligence (AI) adoption.
In April Oklo signed a $25M deal to provide up to to 500 MW of nuclear power. The data center developer Equinix made a $25 million prepayment as part of the power purchase agreement. However, it did not take an equity stake in the firm.
Oklo’s stock was hammered on the first day of trading May 9th dropping from an open of $18.23/share with a slow recovery closing on May 24th at $10.15/share. Confidence in the firm’s future work with nuclear materials was boosted by its MOU on May 13th by an agreement with Idaho Falls, ID, based Atomic Alchemy to co-develop nuclear isotopes. The partnership aims to increase the production of industrial and medical isotopes vital for cancer treatment, diagnostic imaging, and clean energy technologies.
The letter of intent for Equinix intends to purchase power from Oklo’s planned ‘powerhouses’ to serve Equinix’s data centers in the US on a 20-year timeline at rates to be decided in future Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs). Equinix will have the right to renew and extend PPAs for additional 20-year terms. Planned locations for the data centers and their reactor power sources were not disclosed in the filing. Equinix, which has been in the data center business for over two decades, owns and operates a network of 260 International Business Exchange (IBX) data centers located in 71 major metro areas around the world
The letter provides Equinix the right of first refusal for 36 months for the output of certain powerhouses for power capacity of no less than 100MWe and up to a cumulative maximum of 500MWe.
Key Challenges for Nuclear Energy and Data Centers
The two nonbinding agreements Oklo has signed are part of a trend in which the growing demand for electricity by data centers planning to support artificial intelligence are being addressed by power purchase agreements from nuclear utilities, and, directly, from developers of nuclear reactors who are offering to build and operate power plants for customers.
Timelines Matter
The company at one time predicted it would have its first unit in operation by 2025. In an interview with Bloomberg wire service on 5/10/24, CEO Jacob DeWitte offered a revised timeline in general terms. Oklo states on its website it now plans to ship its reactors to customers “before the end of the decade.”
“We’ve got regulatory work ahead of us for the next couple of years before we really transition into the heavier capital outlays for some of equipment that we’ll be investing in as part of the plant and building out the plant,” DeWitte said.
Timelines for delivery to customers of other SMRs vary depending on the technology and maturity.
In a webinar hosted last week by the American Nuclear Society, Rita Baranwal, SVP for the AP300 SMR project at Westinghouse in charge of the development and go to market strategy for the firm’s new AP300 SMR, said that it could be as long as a decade before one of them produces power for its first customer. The firm announced the start of work on the SMR in May 2023. In February 2024 it announced an agreement to build four of them for a privately funded industrial consortium in the UK.
The GE-Hitachi BWRX300 which has agreements to build multiple units for the Tennessee Valley Authority at its Clinch River, TN, site, and for Ontario Power Generation at its Darlington, ON, Canada, site. An NRC license is in the future although currently the firm continues to engage with the agency via topical reports to be reviewed in prelicensing meetings. The firm completed Phases 1 & 2 of the Vendor Design Review (VDR) process at the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission in March 2023. A VDR does not involve the issuance of a license under Canada’s Nuclear Safety and Control Act and is not part of the licensing process. The conclusions of the VDR do not bind or otherwise influence decisions made by the Commission.
Data Centers Tapping Nuclear Utilities for Power
The incredible growth in expected demand for power by data centers expecting to host the intensive processing power of semiconductors designed to run AI programs is focused on a much shorter timeline than for SMRs. For this reason, it is likely there will be more power purchase agreements inked with existing nuclear utilities to carve out a guaranteed supply of reliable electrical power.
For instance, in March of this year, Talen Energy announced its sale of a 960-megawatt data center campus to cloud service provider Amazon Web Services (AWS), a subsidiary of Amazon, for $650 million. The data center, Cumulus Data Assets, is located on a 1,200-acre campus in Pennsylvania and is directly powered by the adjacent Susquehanna Steam Electric Station (SSES), which generates 2.5 GWe of power. In other words, there is no external public grid involved. The power will come via a direct private connection.
In terms of the mantra of “data centers need power now,” according to Talen Energy’s investor presentation, it will supply fixed-price nuclear power to AWS’s new data center as it is built. AWS reported to have contractual power commitments that stage in 120 MW increments over time. The firm has two 10-year extension options tied to NRC nuclear license renewals of the SSES reactor. There’s plenty of time for that as the current license does not come up for renewal until July of 2042.
Microsoft signed an agreement in June 2023 with Constellation for power from its fleet of nuclear reactors to supply electricity to a data center in Boynton, VA. A similar agreement was signed by Microsoft with Ontario Power Generation (OPG) in September 2022. As part of the deal, OPG and Microsoft will explore digital co-innovation opportunities to accelerate OPG’s Small Modular Reactor (SMR) program. OPG is planning to build one or more of the GE-Hitachi BWRX300 small modular reactor.
Overall, while there is great excitement about the potential for data centers to be powered by nuclear energy, large and small, the current trend is for data centers is to tap into existing nuclear utilities.
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Norsk Kjernekraft Plans SMRs for Norway’s Data Centers
Norsk Kjernekraft (NK) says it will develop the reactors to provide private line power power connections for data centers and other industrial customers that require “reliable power” that are ‘off-the-‘grid’ also known as ‘behind-the-meter.’
It is in the interest of data centers to bypass regional grid connections and tap into the electric utility’s generating plant with a private wire to insure uninterrupted 24X7 365 days/year power. Emergency power is then supplied by diesel generators or fuel cells.
In its press statement the firm said Google has plans in Norway that, over the next two decades, wants 840 MW of electricity for its data center in Skien. Energy Minister Terje Aasland (who comes from Skien) has said that Skien municipality must provide the power itself. The acting mayor has said that the city will consider nuclear power. The city is located 250 miles (440 km) southeast and the six hours it takes to to travel there includes a ferry ride across one of Norway’s many fjords.
Aside from its northern latitude, 59:09N, 9:42E, the climate is remarkably temperate for this location between April and October. Winter months are frigid which makes for an virtually unlimited supply of cold air to cool hot data centers at least half of the year.
Norsk Kjernekraft said it can build three-to-four SMRs of 300 MWe each in connection with the data center. It will deliver 900-1200 MW of electricity (7.5-10 TWh a year) on an land area equivalent to a couple or three football stadiums. It is enough to operate the data center and, for example, a green electrolysis factory for hydrogen (where the heat can be utilized).
In addition, NK said the heat will be able to be used for the nearby Herøya industrial park located 12 miles south of Skien. Herøya Industripark is of the country’s largest industrial parks. Its coastal site makes it a major port for exports. There are approximately 80 companies in the park with a total of 2,500 employees
Despite the fact that Norway’s North Sea fossil fuel platforms produce two million barrels/day in oil, the country’s electricity grid currently runs entirely renewable energy sources mainly provided by hydro power, which accounts for 88% of the country’s supply along with wind energy adding another 10%.
The oil and gas sector continues to be a key driver for the Norwegian economy. The sector accounts for 24% of GDP, 19% of total investments, 36% of state revenues, and 52% of total exports. Between oil and gas resources, and hydro power, until now Norway has not had an inclination to develop nuclear energy power stations. There are no commercial nuclear reactors in Norway. Public perceptions about nuclear energy range from ambivalent to so-called “green” views that object to anything nuclear.
What to with All that Heat in Norway?
The firm says that the waste heat generated by data center’s computer devices can also be harnessed for manufacturing processes and district heating systems. Norsk Kjernekraft emphasized the heat produced by the SMRs could also “be used for heat-intensive industries.”
“It can be for the production of steel and aluminum, but also for carbon capture, as well as the production of hydrogen, ammonia, and e-fuels. The residual heat can be used for district heating. All this reduces the need for electricity, and thereby also the need for grid development.”
Although the proposal by Norsk Kjernekraft for SMRs to power data centers at Skien is still in the talking stage, the company is also proposing to build a nuclear plant made up of five SMRs in a suburb of the city of Bergen. It has signed a deal with Rolls Royce, which will supply that firm’s 470 MWe PWR type reactors for the site. Rolls Royce has previously pitched its new reactor design directly to data center operators. Now NK says the plan is for data centers inking power purchase agreements with it for electricity from the Rolls-Royce reactors. Feasibility studies are currently being carried out, and the company believes the first reactor could be up and running in ten years.
Rolls-Royce is currently taking its 470 MW PWR design through the UK Office of Nuclear Regulation generic design assessment process which should be complete for the purpose of licensing it in the UK later this decade.
It is unclear to what extent a UK license would carry weight with the Norwegian nuclear safety agency which have never reviewed an entirely new commercial reactor design for safety and for the purpose of then issuing a license to build one or a fleet of them. It has licensed two small research reactors.
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NuclearN.ai Launches SPARK-mini Open Nuclear AI Model
In its press statement the firm said that the LLM is ” uniquely accessible, open for researchers and practitioners with specialized security concerns and consistently outperforms larger, more powerful models.” It added that SPARK-mini is available for download today from the Hugging Face platform.
According to the company statement, SPARK-mini is trained on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s ADAMS Public Library, which encompasses over 50 million of nuclear regulatory, technical, design, and operational records.
The LLM is intended to provide NuclearN’s customer base of nuclear utilities and service providers with the ability to interpret complex nuclear terminology SPARK-mini is intended to serve the needs of practitioners and researchers that desire to build applications requiring a high degree of nuclear understanding while also offering privacy, data security, and offline accessibility.
“NuclearN’s objective has always been to drive innovation within the nuclear power industry,” says Brad Fox, CEO and Co-Founder of NuclearN.ai.
“Along with the AtomAssist platform and our technical authoring tools, we are excited to help accelerate innovation in the nuclear industry. SPARK-mini represents the first openly available nuclear-focused LLM that is small enough to be deployed in traditional IT environments, yet powerful enough to be an incredibly useful tool to accelerate technical work accurately and expediently.”
The firm also noted that the platform features ‘AI hallucination’ management and automated independent verifications for technical authorship. The firm offers customized solutions based on a team of nuclear industry veterans and technology experts. They provide training and support for deployment of the LLM.
Prior Coverage on this Blog
- Constellation Saves Millions Using Blue Wave AI Tools
- Startup Offers AI Tool to Access NRC’s ADAMS Library
- In New Report DOE Tackles AI for Nuclear Energy
- Opportunities for Using AI in the Nuclear Energy Industry
- Is the Nuclear Energy Industry Ready for AI?
- OpenAI CEO Altman Says Future of AI Depends on an Energy Breakthrough
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Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Using AI for Digital Twin Applications in Nuclear Plant Management
Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) reports it has completed a successful demonstration using digital twin software applications to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into the management sector of nuclear power plants.
Digital twin technology, now under development for application by Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP), will enable the firm to monitor and control the country’s 26 nuclear power generating units more effectively than ever before, according to the state-run company Friday.
KHNP said digital twin, a digital model of an actual physical system that serves as an digital counterpart of the physical reactor, will allow its central R&D center in Daejeon to remotely oversee the units in five nuclear power plants nationwide — Kori, Wolsong, Hanbit, Hanul and Saeul — and apply immediate solutions at times of unexpected situations.
The upcoming breakthrough is a revolutionary improvement from the industry’s initial operations in which power plants were managed by each of their own operating systems instead of a singular organization, making the company’s control over its plants inefficient and tricky.
KHNP’s digital twin development is currently evolving concerning the detailed systematic blueprints of Saeul Nuclear Power Plant’s units 1 and 2 in Ulsan. Its development is expected to be finished in 2026, the technology will be first deployed at Shin Kori Nuclear Power Plant’s units 3 and 4 in Ulsan, where avatars will roam the facility and monitor specific parts just like a technician in real life would.
“The digital twin will allow us to simultaneously check reactor cores, turbines and generators in different power plants in a three-dimensional virtual world, ” a KHNP official said. He added that it is now in demand in the Czech Republic and Poland seeking to import our nuclear power technologies.”
The digital twin technology is part of ongoing development projects by KHNP’s Artificial Intelligence Monitoring and Diagnosis (AIMD) Center in Daejeon. Having set up a complete remote command center over the power plants, the center oversees the facilities and checks for any malfunctions by detecting signs of vibrations emanating from a power plant in trouble. The magnitude of the vibrations the center can detect is so small that they are even undetectable to the plant experiencing the technical difficulty.
“The biggest strength of AI which distinguishes itself from human labor is that it can monitor a large volume of facilities simultaneously,” the AIMD researcher said. “It can also detect abnormal signs before any human can notice.”
KHNP is now building its latest power plants, Shin Hanul units 3 and 4, next to the now-operating units 1 and 2 in Uljin, with a cost of $7.2 billion) The APR1400, a model entirely designed by Korea, is expected to be completed in 2032 and 2033, respectively, and generate 1,400 megawatts of electricity from each unit.
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NRC Dockets Construction Permit Application for TerraPower’s Natrium Reactor
The advanced reactor company, based in Bellevue, Washington, is seeking permission to build its Natrium reactor in Kemmerer, Wyoming as part of a demonstration project supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). If approved, the construction permit will be the first ever issued by the NRC for a commercial non-light water power reactor.
TerraPower’s application applied new technology-inclusive guidance that was recently issued by the NRC to ensure consistency, quality, and uniformity of reviews for non-light water reactor applicants. The new guidance included an endorsement of the industry-led TICAP project (ML21272A303) to deliver a more risk-informed review of the safety analysis report. The project is an important next step in implementing the licensing modernization project, which was supported by DOE and also involves collaboration with industry and the NRC.
“We’re excited to have our construction permit application docketed for review by the NRC,” said Jeff Navin, the director of external affairs for TerraPower.
“By implementing the licensing modernization project framework, TerraPower is helping to demonstrate a more streamlined approach to licensing non-light water advanced reactors.”
The Natrium reactor is a 345MWe sodium-cooled fast reactor with a molten salt energy storage system that is being designed to flexibly operate with renewable power generators to help decarbonize the electric grid. The first Natrium reactor will be built in Lincoln County, WY, near the retiring Naughton coal plant—a transition to nuclear power that could bring new economic and environmental benefits to the community. Non-nuclear construction on the project is expected to start later this summer.
TerraPower said recently it is confident its first Natrium plant will be built by 2030, but HALEU fuel supply remains a concern.
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