A small modular reactor developer recently unveiled its first public financial figures, which indicate the company will be in the red for quite a while as it presses ahead with its bid to reshape the nuclear power landscape.
After filing numerous reports with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in May and late April, NuScale Power Corp., Corvallis, Ore., went public on the New York Stock Exchange on May 2 and held its first teleconference with analysts on Friday.
“NuScale Power is well positioned and well capitalized to lead the broader energy industry into the future, one in which nuclear power is increasingly recognized as a critically important solution for cost-effective, 100% carbon-free baseload power, said the company’s CEO John Hopkins in a Friday press release.
Friday’s milestone occurred only days after NuScale defended itself from a Stanford University report that said small modular reactors like NuScale’s NRC-approved design produce a greater waste volume than conventional nuclear reactors, and that the spent fuel from advanced reactors would be around 50% more radioactive.
NuScale is developing a small modular reactor design and hopes to expand into manufacturing and selling the reactors. Small modular reactors are prefabricated facilities with parts manufactured in one location then transported to the reactor site for final assembly. A modular segment would consist of a mini-reactor of 77 megawatts. The design allows for extra modules to be added as needed.
In 2020, NuScale became the first and so far only small modular reactor developer to receive approval for its design by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The company still needs the NRC to amend its regulations to allow for construction of a small modular reactor, something that could happen late this year.
NuScale has $383.7 million in capital available for development of its small modular reactors, including $341 million provided April 28 when Spring Valley Acquisition Corp., a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company based in the Cayman Islands, merged with NuScale. A special purpose acquisition company is a publicly-traded shell company.
NuScale has spent $805 million since its founding in 2007, according to the SEC filing. In the first quarter of 2022, it earned $2.445 million in revenue from the sale of licenses and technology to potential clients, compared with $664,000 in revenue in the first quarter of 2021.
Prior to the merger with Spring Valley, NuScale predicted it would need $200 million through 2024 to continue developing its small modular reactor. NuScale is working with a major regional utility, Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, to deploy the first NuScale power plant with one reactor module in 2029 at the Idaho National Laboratory. NuScale hopes to add another five modular reactors at INL in 2030.
NuScale also hopes to deliver six small modular reactors to Romania’s S.N. Nuclearelectrica S.A by 2028, according to an April 29 SEC filing.
