NuScale Power Corporation is a publicly traded American company that designs and markets small modular reactors (SMRs). It is headquartered in Tigard, Oregon.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Thursday approved NuScale Power’s design for seventy-seven megawatt reactors called VOYGR, clearing a hurdle for the company as it seeks to be the first company to build a U.S. small modular reactor (SMR).

NuScale sought approval for the seventy-seven megawatt design to improve economics and performance of its planned small modular reactors (SMRs), after having originally received NRC approval in 2020 for a fifty megawatt reactor design.

SMRs are designed to be constructed in factories with relatively easily replicated parts instead of onsite like conventional nuclear power plants. Backers say these reactors will be safer to operate, their uranium cycles will be more resistant to access from militants seeking to obtain fissile materials, and their modular nature will reduce costs for multiple plants.

SMR critics say that they will be more expensive to operate than conventional nuclear reactors and they will continue to produce radioactive waste for which the U.S. currently has no permanent repository.

NuScale is the only U.S. company with an approved SMR design, but reaching the point of building a plant has been difficult. In 2023 NuScale cancelled its first project with a Utah municipal power group, despite a U.S. government promise of one billion three hundred and five million dollars in funding over ten years for the plant, known as the Carbon Free Power Project. As costs rose for the project rose, several towns had pulled out of the project.

John Hopkins is NuScale’s president and chief executive. He said that Thursday’s approval, which came two months earlier than had been expected, permits the company to construct and operate a plant.

Hopkins added, “We now have an American technology that is near-term deployable.”. As many as twelve of the seventy-seven reactors can be put together in a plant which would be about the size of a typical conventional reactor.

Hopkins said that the company could have an SMR in operation by the end of the decade if a customer moves quickly to submit an order. “It’s really in the customer’s hands,” he remarked. NuScale shares were down four percent at thirty-four dollars in afternoon trade.

Interest in nuclear power has spiked as U.S. power demand has risen for the first time in two decades on the boom in so-called hyper-scalers building data centers needed for artificial intelligence.

Last week President Donald Trump signed four executive orders to overhaul the NRC, including the reduction of staffing levels in some offices. The executive orders also directed the Energy and Defense departments to work together to construct nuclear plants on federal lands.

The orders did not provide any new public funding but could open the way for financing from the Loan Programs Office.

Hopkins said NuScale is in negotiations to build SMRs with five “tier one hyper-scalers that we have non-disclosure agreements with”. He did not identify with the customers placing the orders.

NuScale