Backers of the proposed 720-MW UAMPS Carbon Free Power Project in Idaho said the project has moved into the execution phase, with agreements on cost estimates and initial planning for licensing, manufacturing and construction.

The supporters presented the new agreements as a major step toward bringing small modular nuclear reactors to market, but opponents pointed out that there are no guarantees the project will receive proposed U.S. Department of Energy funding.

Nuclear industry officials have said that small modular nuclear reactors will bolster the nation's energy security with baseload, carbon-free power, and the U.S. Department of Energy in October 2020 approved a cost-share award of nearly $1.36 billion for the power plant, which will be built at the Idaho National Laboratory if it goes forward.

NuScale Power LLC and Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems said on Jan. 11 that the new agreements represent the transition from evaluation to the execution phase of the project.

"The orders between NuScale and UAMPS mark the next major step in moving forward with the commercialization of NuScale's groundbreaking small modular reactor (SMR) technology," said John Hopkins, NuScale chairman and CEO, in a press release. "This is the first step in a prudent deployment plan that could result in the order of NuScale Power Modules in 2022."

The project's future was imperiled in October 2020 after several communities from UAMPS, which will own the plant, opted out. The nonprofit organization, which provides wholesale electricity to 48 members, most of them small municipalities in Utah, California, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico and Wyoming, in 2015 signed on to be the first customer of the NuScale project. In opting out, cities cited concerns about investing local taxpayer funds in a speculative venture.

M.V. Ramana, a University of British Columbia professor and physicist who is a member of the International Panel on Fissile Materials and the International Nuclear Risk Assessment Group, said in an email that the $1.36 billion Energy Department award is "not guaranteed at all," as it still must go through the congressional appropriations process.

Congressional approval is "very uncertain, especially as we go into the future and nuclear power seems even less economically competitive with renewables and storage," said Ramana.

The Energy Department award, which would be allocated over the course of a decade, would help ensure that the reactor project reaches its energy price target of $55/MWh.

"If it is an agreement that reduces the financial risks to participant cities, that would be information we would like to know," Rusty Cannon, vice president of the Utah Taxpayers Association, which has opposed the project, said in an email. "Our concerns about the financial risks of continuing in the project were echoed by virtually all of the cities that voted to withdraw from the project."

A NuScale spokeswoman said in an email that 27 UAMPS cities remain committed to the project. Others in the West have expressed interest in such technology as the use of coal declines.

In August, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the project's design, and the backers said they expect to submit a license application to the NRC by the second quarter of 2023. The NRC's review is expected to be complete by the second half of 2025, according to the announcement, "with nuclear construction of the project beginning shortly thereafter."

NuScale is a subsidiary of Fluor Corp.