NuScale CEO touts data center deal, heavy industry SMR interest amid $180M loss for 2023
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Dive Brief:
On Thursday, NuScale Power reported fourth-quarter and full-year financial results for 2023. NuScale reported fourth-quarter revenues of $4.6 million, full-year revenues of $22.8 million and respective quarterly and annual net losses of $56.4 million and $180.1 million, according to a company-provided summary of its results.
NuScale reported a nearly $50 million charge related to the November termination of its Carbon Free Power Project, or CFPP, with Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, NuScale Chairman and CEO John Hopkins said on an investor call following the earnings release.
Hopkins cited increased interest in reliable, 24/7 clean energy from heavy industry and data center operators as potential tailwinds for NuScale. In October, the company announced its selection as the technology partner for Standard Power, which provides “infrastructure as a service” to data center operators. Standard Power plans to use SMRs to provide nearly 2 GW of power to two future data center facilities in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Dive Insight:
NuScale’s earnings report comes after a difficult few months for the company. In addition to the CFPP termination, in January, NuScale laid off 154 employees, or 28% of its workforce in “cost efficiency actions projected to result in approximately $50 million to $60 million in annualized savings,” the earnings report said. NuScale stock fell to a low of $1.92 on Jan. 18, but has since risen 275% to $7.20 as of press time.
Responding to a question from an analyst on the call, NuScale CFO Ramsey Hamady described the workforce cuts as a “right-sizing of administrative costs” that “preserved the DNA” of NuScale and allowed the company to “remain very nimble in [its] ability to scale.”
The layoffs followed a slight drop in research and development spending in 2023 as NuScale shifted resources toward commercialization and deployment of its small modular reactor technology. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has accepted NuScale’s revised 77-MWe VOYGR design for review and the company sees “no perceived challenges” ahead of an expected summer 2025 approval, according to the earnings presentation.
NuScale’s focus has shifted over the past year from providing clean, firm grid power to serving “enormous energy consumers” like hyperscale data centers, Hopkins said. American data centers’ energy consumption is expected to triple by 2030, to 7.5% of total U.S. electricity usage, according to the earnings presentation. The industry is a major tailwind for the global SMR and advanced nuclear reactor pipeline, which Wood Mackenzie said grew to 22 GW this year.
ENTRA1 Energy, an energy investment and production firm, will support the planned Standard Power facilities in what could be the first of a series of partnerships with end-users that prefer not to own and operate their own SMRs. ENTRA1’s only announced SMR partner to date is NuScale, according to ENTRA1’s website.
NuScale also sees opportunity in partnering with other power-hungry industries that recognize “advanced nuclear’s critical role in the energy transition,” including the emergent green hydrogen industry, NuScale Vice President of Business Development Chuck Goodnight said in an email to Utility Dive.
NuScale has eight funded projects with petrochemical industry partners, and NuScale Chief Technology Officer Jose Reyes will be the only advanced nuclear company representative to speak at the World Petrochemical Conference in Houston next week, according to the company’s earnings presentation.
Some of NuScale’s most promising contracts are with international partners. Last year, the company signed an agreement with RoPower Nuclear to deploy a NuScale VOYGR-6 SMR power plant at the Doicesti Power Station in Romania. Hopkins said an announcement of a “limited notice to proceed” on the project could come as soon as April. But a green hydrogen and ammonia demonstration project in Ukraine remains stalled due to the ongoing Russian bombardment of the country, Hopkins said.
Correction: A previous version of this story erred in its description of NuScale and ENTRA1 Energy's agreements with Standard Power. Standard Power selected NuScale in October as its SMR technology provider for two future data centers in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and ENTRA1 will support the planned facilities.
