The Tennessee Valley Authority has submitted a construction permit application for a small modular nuclear reactor to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the utility announced May 20.
The TVA submitted its application using the GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy Inc. BWRX-300 design. The TVA holds the nation's only early site permit for a small modular reactor (SMR) at its Clinch River Nuclear site in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and is pursuing what could be the first utility-scale SMR in the US.
"This is a significant milestone for TVA, our region and our nation because we are accelerating the development of new nuclear technology, its supply chain and delivery model to unleash American energy," TVA President and CEO Don Moul said in a statement. "TVA has put in the work to advance the design and develop the first application for the BWRX-300 technology, creating a path for other utilities who choose to build the same technology."
Moving the project forward is exciting for the TVA and the nuclear industry, "but I'm not going to do it on the backs of our customers without the right kind of financial support," Moul added in a recorded statement accompanying the news release.
Moul said May 1 during a fiscal second-quarter 2025 earnings call that the TVA had submitted its environmental report to the NRC.
"We will have an SMR design with an early site permit in to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for their consideration before anybody else in the country right now," Moul said May 1.
But the TVA is "nowhere near" ordering long lead time parts for the project, Moul said. The TVA has not yet fully signed off on the project. The agency's board would have to do that, and the board does not now have a quorum and has been unable to conduct business since the Trump administration fired the chair and another member.
The TVA led an application filed in January for $800 million in federal grant funds to help fund the BWRX-300 project at Clinch River, alongside Duke Energy Corp., American Electric Power Co. Inc. and others. The US Energy Department in March reissued the solicitation for SMRs, with $900 million available, and the TVA-led group has reapplied.
Receiving the federal funding could accelerate construction by two years, with commercial operation planned in 2033.
Tennessee's two US senators urged the TVA in March to accelerate efforts to develop the SMR at Clinch River, saying the federal power authority could lead a nuclear energy "revival" necessary to meet growing electricity demand.
The TVA has invested $200 million in the Clinch River project so far, and its board has authorized another $150 million.
The TVA is working with Ontario Power Generation Inc. on the BWRX-300 SMR design, which Ontario Power plans to build at its Darlington nuclear site.
The Darlington project is on schedule and moving ahead well, David Paterson, the Ontario government's representative in Washington, DC, told Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, at the Nuclear Energy Institute's Nuclear Energy Policy Forum May 20.
