NuScale's TVA Deal Could Be Largest Nuclear Contract in U.S. History

Energy Minister Eknat Prompan has unveiled a major energy restructuring plan, under which the government will reserve 10,000 megawatts of rooftop solar generating capacity specifically for the public, set at roughly 5 kilowatts per household, to spread the right across households nationwide. Under the new approach, the state will buy back surplus power and apply it as a discount on the same billing cycle's electricity bill. A 5-kilowatt system can generate about 600 to 700 units per month, worth roughly 2,000 baht or more, and the state will provide a subsidy of 50,000 baht, with the income from the generated power used to pay it off. The equipment is expected to be fully paid off in about 7 to 10 years. On cutting permitting steps, coordination will be handled solely through the distribution utilities, with a target of about 1 week for inspection and acceptance in self-consumption installations, and no more than 1 month in cases of selling power back. For the new Power Development Plan, or PDP, three goals are set: cleanest, most stable, and fairest. It targets raising the share of clean energy from the current level of just over 20% to close to 50% within 10 years, and no less than 65% in the long term, while reducing reliance on spot-market LNG in favor of long-term contracts, and opening the door to future technologies including hydrogen, geothermal, solid oxide fuel cells, and small modular nuclear reactors, or SMRs. Meanwhile, the public electricity cost that has been embedded in the power tariff structure for 30 to 40 years amounts to a burden of about 18 billion baht per year. The government has removed this burden from the structure and has already implemented a measure capping the first 200 units of household electricity at 3 baht per unit.

Oklo, the microreactor developer that went public through a SPAC merger on May 10, 2024, is targeting deployment of its first Aurora Powerhouse microreactors in Idaho in late 2027 or early 2028, with analysts expecting revenue to rise to $2 million in 2026, $8 million in 2027, and $53 million in 2028. The Aurora generates only 1.5 MWe on its own but is designed to be deployed alongside additional microreactors to build plants capable of generating up to 75 MWe, far below the over 1,000 MWe of a conventional nuclear plant, though its modular, factory-prefabricated design suits remote, off-grid sites and data center operators. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved Oklo's Principal Design Criteria for the Aurora in June, and the company achieved criticality at Groves One, its first pilot isotope-production reactor, in early August, deploying it in just 229 days. Oklo's partnership with Meta Platforms, announced in January, aims to deliver 1.2 GW of power at a nuclear campus in Ohio, with initial phases expected online around 2030, and the company is working to convert a multi-gigawatt pipeline of non-binding letters of intent, including a 14 GW agreement with Switch, into firm Power Purchase Agreements. Oklo also signed an LOI to buy HALEU from Centrus Energy, one of the only companies authorized to produce and enrich HALEU in the United States, while carrying a $7.4 billion market cap that trades at 139 times its 2028 sales.