American Electric Power and X-energy have signed a joint development agreement to evaluate a 960 MW small modular reactor project at a former coal plant site in Sullivan County, Indiana. The October 19 announcement identifies the retired Breed Generating Station, a former Indiana Michigan Power coal plant, as the potential location for 12 of X-energy's Xe-100 reactors.
Each Xe-100 produces 80 MW. The plant would be arranged in three groups of four reactors, each group delivering 320 MW. Amazon will provide development funding and intends to buy the plant's output under a long-term power purchase agreement that AEP says would cover the costs of the facility and its operations for the length of the contract. Construction would proceed only if the project reaches a final investment decision.
The project would be the second under the 2024 collaboration in which Amazon took a stake in X-energy and the two set a goal of adding more than 5 GW of new US nuclear capacity by 2039. The first is Energy Northwest's Cascade Advanced Energy Facility in Washington state. The project would likely create about 1,000 construction jobs and 100 permanent jobs in Indiana. Sullivan County recently joined the state's Advanced Nuclear Ready Communities Program.
The Xe-100 is a pebble bed high-temperature gas reactor. It runs on TRISO fuel made from high-assay low-enriched uranium, which X-energy's TRISO-X subsidiary will manufacture. In February, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued TRISO-X a 40-year Special Nuclear Material License for that work. X-energy's first planned Xe-100 deployment is at Dow's Seadrift site on the Texas Gulf Coast.
Source: World Nuclear News - https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/aep-amazon-and-x-energy-plan-12-smr-plant