US computing infrastructure provider announces SMR plans

Monday, 9 October 2023

It has also enlisted independent global energy development and production company ENTRA1 Energy - NuScale's global strategic partner for commercialising the NuScale SMR Technology - to support the two projects.

Standard Power's plans for the two facilities will see NuScale providing 24 units of 77 MWe modules, collectively producing 1,848 MWe of clean energy from the Ohio and Pennsylvania sites. The two projects will also represent a significant economic boost for their respective communities, NuScale said.

The development of a commercial SMR power facility will not only help the data centre achieve carbon reduction targets, but will also support the development of a new clean energy source to meet diverse energy transition needs, NuScale added.

"We see a lot of legacy baseload grid capacity going offline with a lack of new sustainable baseload generation options on the market especially as power demand for artificial intelligence (AI)-computing and data centres is growing," Standard Power founder and CEO Maxim Serezhin said. "By bringing together ENTRA1’s superior strengths in project development and investment with NuScale's proven SMR technology, consumers can reduce their emissions footprint and help meet decarbonisation goals while delivering the reliable 24/7 service to energy consumers."

NuScale in 2022 formed an exclusive global partnership with ENTRA1 to commercialise NuScale SMR technology, through which ENTRA1 has the rights to develop, manage, own and operate energy production plants powered by the only SMR technology that has, to date, received design approval from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

"ENTRA1 Energy has a strong global pipeline of energy production projects of multiple gigawatts of power generation with NuScale's proven technology," said NuScale Chief Commercial Officer Clayton Scott. With power demand growing in the semiconductor, AI, data and other tech sectors, ENTRA1 and NuScale are "uniquely positioned" to supply baseload and reliable power, he added.

NuScale's Power Module is a pressurised water reactor with all the components for steam generation and heat exchange incorporated into a single 77 MWe (250 MW thermal) unit. The first NuScale SMR, Project WIN, is projected to be operational in 2029, at Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems' Carbon Free Power Plant which is to be built on a site at Idaho National Laboratory.