United States: NuScale receives regulatory approval in US

NuScale Power has received regulatory approval for a small modular reactor (SMR) which experts say could be utilized to power data centers at a later date. This makes it the first SMR to obtain this kind of approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for deployment in the US.

Speaking about this, the US government, Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Dr Kathryn Huff, said: "SMRs are no longer an abstract concept. They are real and they are ready for deployment thanks to the hard work of NuScale, the university community, our national labs, industry partners, and the NRC. This is innovation at its finest and we are just getting started here in the US!"

CEO John Hopkins said NuScale expressed that he was "thrilled to announce the historic rulemaking from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for NuScale's small modular reactor design, and we thank the Department of Energy (DOE) for their support throughout this process."

With data center operators increasingly struggling against grid constraints to power their facilities, some argue that SMRs could be the future of power for the sector. No longer are SMRs an abstract concept, but experts say the first commercial data center applications are still a decade away.