(Bloomberg) -- The world's first small-scale nuclear power reactor may be just eight years away.
NuScale Power LLC, which is leading global efforts to build a so-called small modular reactor, is seeking as much as $120 million in equity investment to accelerate design of a matching power generator. The company has already spent more than $700 million, and has “hundreds of millions of dollars more to spend,” Chief Financial Officer Jay Surina said in an interview on the sidelines of the Bloomberg New Energy Finance Future of Energy Summit in New York.
“We could use another investor or two,” he said. Backed by Fluor Corp., NuScale is casting a wide net that includes “deep-pocketed individual investors,” Surina said, noting it's “too early yet for private equity.”
The type of reactor NuScale is targeting would be cheaper to build than current designs and more capable of operating intermittently to back up wind and solar power, Chris Gadomski, a BNEF analyst, said Tuesday on a panel at the summit. NuScale is aiming for commercial operations in 2026 for a plant in Utah comprised of a dozen 50-megawatt reactors. It is the only company with small-reactor design certification pending before the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jim Polson in New York at jpolson@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lynn Doan at ldoan6@bloomberg.net, Margot Habiby, Will Wade
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