The Tennessee Valley Authority submitted a construction permit application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a small modular reactor at its Clinch River site near Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The filing makes TVA the first United States utility to apply for permission to build the GE Vernova Hitachi BWRX-300 design. The NRC has docketed the application, opening the formal technical review.
Separately, the NRC approved NuScale Power's uprated 77 megawatt-electric reactor design in February 2026. That approval made the NuScale unit the second small modular reactor design cleared by the commission and raised the per-module output from the company's originally certified configuration.
TerraPower's Natrium project moved through its own review sequence, with the NRC completing the environmental review in October 2025 and issuing the final safety evaluation in December 2025. A construction permit decision was expected during the first half of 2026.
Smaller demonstration units have targeted criticality dates during the same window. A 15 megawatt-electric underground borehole pressurized water reactor set a criticality target for July 2026, and a 1 megawatt-electric portable microreactor targeted July 4, 2026 at the Idaho National Laboratory DOME test bed.
Department of Energy funding has followed the licensing progress, with Generation III Plus SMR program awards directed to TVA for the BWRX-300 and to Holtec for the SMR-300 in Michigan.
Source: U.S. Department of Energy - https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/nrc-dockets-construction-permit-application-tva-small-modular-reactor