Six small modular reactors that NuScale, Portland, Ore., planned to use in a canceled generation project in the southwestern U.S. could be diverted to another customer, the company’s CEO said Tuesday.
“I want to be able to take those modules and move them over to our next customer,” John Hopkins, president and CEO of NuScale, said Tuesday in a speech to the American Nuclear Society’s annual winter meeting in Washington. Fluor Corp., Irving, Texas, is NuScale’s majority shareholder.
Last week, Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems and NuScale, citing lack of customers for the electricity, announced they were canceling plans to build small modular reactors that could have delivered power to seven states.
“It just wasn’t meant to be,” Hopkins told the annual gathering of nuclear professionals and advocates.
Hopkins did not take any questions from the stage, though he did say that he was traveling Tuesday to Romania to meet with customer RoPower Nuclear, and that NuScale was also close to finalizing an agreement with Standard Power, which wants to install two gigawatts of carbon free power in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
“Hopefully we’ll have our master services agreement completed [with Standard Power] if not this week than next.” Hopkins said.
Before leaving for his international trip, Hopkins told the audience that nuclear energy was again having a moment in Washington.
“We worked the Hill extremely hard this past year, both sides of the aisle.” Hopkins said. “I’ve never seen a place better for us as an industry as we are today.”