NuScale's 8-gigawatt TVA deal would be largest US nuclear build-out

NuScale Power's potential Tennessee Valley Authority deal could scale to 8 gigawatts of new small modular reactor capacity, nearly doubling the utility's existing nuclear fleet with a technology that has never operated at commercial scale.

NuScale Power's potential deal with the Tennessee Valley Authority could reach 8 gigawatts of new small modular reactor capacity, roughly matching the utility's entire existing nuclear fleet of 8.3 GW.

"The question for off-takers is no longer whether to go with nuclear — it is which technology can actually deliver, and when," John Hopkins, NuScale's chief executive, said on the company's second-quarter earnings call.

The arrangement runs through ENTRA1 Energy, NuScale's exclusive global strategic partner, under a 50/50 joint venture that will finance, own, and operate six plants across TVA's Southeastern service region. The initial agreement, announced Sept. 2, 2025, outlined up to 6 GW; Hopkins said climbing demand projections could push the ceiling to 8 GW.

A definitive power purchase agreement would mark the largest SMR deployment program in US history and test NuScale's $4.2 billion market value, which currently rests on just $10.7 million of trailing revenue.

The 26-to-2 record hangs over the pitch

NuScale's 77-megawatt modules are factory-built and can be combined into stations of up to 12 units, topping out at 924 MW — less than a single new Vogtle unit. The company holds the only SMR design certification the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued, and it received approval for an updated design in May 2025. It says more than half of its critical supply chain partners are under contract, including fuel supplier Framatome and heavy-forging maker Doosan Enerbility.

The pitch targets the failure mode of the last US nuclear boom. In the late 2000s, utilities filed combined license applications for 26 new reactors at 17 sites; only two were finished. Georgia's Vogtle Units 3 and 4, originally estimated at $14 billion, entered service in 2023 and 2024 at a final cost above $30 billion, seven years late. South Carolina's V.C. Summer expansion was abandoned mid-construction in 2017.

Financials describe a company waiting for its market

NuScale's second-quarter revenue totaled $75,000, down from $8.1 million a year earlier, when it was still collecting engineering fees from its Romanian RoPower project. The company posted a net loss of about $47.5 million for the quarter, though it holds $1.9 billion in cash and investments. The weighted-average Class A share count nearly tripled year over year to about 365 million shares, and the company added a new $750 million at-the-market stock sale program.

Neither of NuScale's two lead opportunities has reached a signed, funded order. The TVA discussions remain just that — discussions — with no definitive power purchase agreement signed and project economics still to be finalized. In Romania, the six-module RoPower project, the most advanced SMR effort in Europe by NuScale's description, is still working through conditions attached to a shareholder vote.

For investors, the TVA program is the clearest test yet of whether NuScale can convert years of engineering into commercial deployment. A single gigawatt of nuclear capacity can power roughly 700,000 to 800,000 homes, so 6 GW would supply more than 4 million homes. NuScale shares, trading near $9.39 with a 52-week range of $7.21 to $57.42, have already priced in much of the upside; the question is whether the company can deliver a reactor before the market's patience runs out. This cycle has something the last one lacked — a new class of buyer in data-center operators with urgent power needs and deep pockets — but the last boom had committed utilities, federal support, and 26 proposed reactors on file. It produced two.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.