Small Modular Reactors Have Finally Received Their First Commercial Orders and the Nuclear Utility Market Is Repricing

The Nuclear Plant That Fits in a Factory and Ships to the Site

Small modular reactors are nuclear fission power plants whose generating capacity of between ten and three hundred megawatts electric is significantly smaller than the large conventional nuclear power plants whose one thousand to one thousand six hundred megawatt generating capacity has defined nuclear power station design since the 1960s, and whose modular construction methodology, in which the reactor core, steam generator, pressuriser, and containment structure are assembled in a factory and shipped to the deployment site as pre-fabricated modules, is intended to recover the cost and schedule overrun problems that large nuclear plant construction has systematically encountered through the site-specific civil construction complexity that has made the French EPR reactor at Flamanville, the UK's Hinkley Point C, and the Finnish EPR at Olkiluoto bywords for nuclear project management failure. The SMR concept proposes to resolve the cost escalation by replacing the custom site-built construction that dominates large nuclear project budgets with the factory manufacturing quality control, serial production learning curves, and standard design repetition that other complex manufactured products including aircraft, ships, and gas turbines have used to achieve the cost reductions that repetitive manufacturing provides. The energy transition context of 2026 has elevated the SMR commercial opportunity above its earlier period of theoretical interest, because the intermittency of renewable electricity whose storage at grid scale remains expensive and whose availability is weather-dependent creates the firm baseload power requirement that the net-zero electricity system needs from a source other than fossil fuels whose carbon capture retrofit makes them expensive, and that only nuclear power can provide at scale without the land use, water consumption, and fuel security concerns that alternative low-carbon baseload options create.

The small modular reactor market, defined as commercially contracted or financed SMR projects whose construction or manufacturing has begun, is valued at approximately $7.2 billion in 2026 in committed capital and growing at over thirty percent annually toward $28 billion by 2031 as the first commercial deployments confirm their construction schedules and as the second-wave projects whose feasibility studies are completing convert to final investment decisions. The commercial readiness of SMR technology in 2026 is best measured not by the announced project pipeline, which has been large since 2018, but by the first genuine final investment decisions in which an electricity utility, industrial energy buyer, or government has committed capital to a specific SMR project on a specific site with a contracted technology provider, construction contractor, and fuel supplier.

NuScale Power and the Commercial Order Story

NuScale Power, the US SMR company whose NuScale Power Module received the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission's standard design approval in 2022, has experienced the most publicly followed SMR commercial journey of any developer, including the 2023 cancellation of the Carbon Free Power Project at the Idaho National Laboratory whose economic unviability at the revised $9.3 billion capital cost for the six-module initial configuration created the commercial setback that the entire SMR industry had to absorb. Its subsequent restructuring around smaller initial deployments, international licensing agreements with Bulgaria, Romania, and Jordan, and the reduced cost targets for its redesigned VOYGR-6 configuration represent the commercial pivot that the Idaho cancellation forced and that has refocused its commercial development on international utility markets where the SMR's capital cost and regulatory pathway are evaluated against different electricity market conditions and nuclear regulatory frameworks than the US context that produced the Idaho cost escalation. GE Hitachi's BWRX-300, the boiling water reactor SMR design whose simplified design relative to its large BWR predecessor has attracted the most credible commercial orders of any western SMR design, has received formal selection decisions from Ontario Power Generation in Canada for the Darlington New Nuclear Project, from TVA in the United States for the Clinch River site, and from Poland's state utility Orlen and Sweden's Vattenfall, creating the most geographically diverse commercial order book of any western SMR whose four-country commitment provides the design repetition and supply chain development that industrial manufacturing learning curves require.

Rolls-Royce SMR, the UK SMR consortium whose design is targeting UK Generic Design Assessment approval from the Office for Nuclear Regulation and whose first deployment sites are being evaluated through the Great British Nuclear site selection process, has secured the UK government capital support whose subsidy mechanism will determine whether the UK can become the SMR manufacturing export base that its nuclear engineering heritage and its Rolls-Royce industrial supply chain would enable. X-energy, the US advanced reactor company whose Xe-100 high-temperature gas-cooled reactor uses TRISO fuel particles whose ceramic coating makes the fuel inherently safe against the core damage accidents that conventional light water reactor safety systems are designed to prevent, has received the Department of Energy's Advanced Reactor Demonstration Programme award and has signed a memorandum of understanding with Dow Chemical for the first industrial heat application of a TRISO-fuelled SMR, creating the commercial pathway into the process heat market that extends SMR applications beyond electricity generation into the decarbonisation of industrial heat whose temperature requirements exceed what heat pumps can provide.

The Data Centre and Industrial Heat Market

The most commercially significant new SMR demand signal to emerge in 2025 and 2026 is the technology company and hyperscaler interest in SMR power for data centre decarbonisation, whose firm baseload power requirement at gigawatt scale and whose corporate power purchase agreement willingness creates a buyer profile that the SMR industry had not anticipated as its primary first-mover customer. Microsoft's agreement with Constellation Energy to reopen the Three Mile Island Unit 1 reactor, and the broader hyperscaler interest in nuclear power purchase agreements from existing and new nuclear plants including SMRs, has created the demand signal that SMR developers are actively pursuing as the long-term offtake anchor whose credit quality and purchase volume provide the revenue certainty that SMR project finance requires.

Top 10 Companies in Small Modular Reactors and Advanced Nuclear Technology Globally

1. NuScale Power: US SMR company with NRC standard design approval and international licensing agreements in Bulgaria, Romania, and Jordan; its NRC-approved design and its international market pivot following the Idaho project cancellation create the US SMR company whose regulatory milestone is the foundation for international commercial deployment in markets whose nuclear regulatory frameworks accept the NRC's design approval as a reference.
2. GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (BWRX-300): US-Japanese nuclear company with BWRX-300 commercial orders from OPG Canada, TVA US, Poland, and Sweden; its four-country commercial order book and its simplified boiling water reactor design create the SMR company with the most geographically diverse genuine commercial commitments whose design repetition across multiple markets creates the industrial manufacturing learning curve that SMR cost reduction requires.
3. Rolls-Royce SMR: UK nuclear consortium with Generic Design Assessment underway and UK Great British Nuclear site selection; its UK government capital support and its Rolls-Royce industrial supply chain create the UK SMR whose government backing and engineering heritage position it as the UK's primary nuclear manufacturing export candidate if the regulatory approval and cost target are achieved.
4. X-energy: US advanced reactor company with Xe-100 TRISO-fuelled high-temperature gas reactor and Dow Chemical industrial heat partnership; its TRISO fuel inherent safety and its industrial process heat application create the SMR company whose high-temperature output extends the nuclear energy application into industrial decarbonisation beyond the electricity generation that conventional SMR designs address.
5. TerraPower: US advanced nuclear company with Natrium sodium-cooled fast reactor backed by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett; its Kemmerer Wyoming demonstration project and its integrated molten salt thermal storage create the advanced reactor company whose fast reactor technology and energy storage integration represent the most commercially ambitious SMR design beyond the conventional light water approaches of NuScale and GE Hitachi.
6. Terrestrial Energy: Canadian molten salt reactor company with Integral Molten Salt Reactor design in Canadian and US regulatory review; its molten salt fuel technology and its industrial heat application create the advanced reactor company whose liquid fuel design eliminates the solid fuel fabrication and waste management steps that conventional nuclear fuel cycles require.
7. Kairos Power: US fluoride salt reactor company with Hermes demonstration reactor at Oak Ridge under NRC construction permit; its liquid salt coolant and TRISO fuel combination and its NRC construction permit for the Hermes demonstration reactor create the advanced reactor developer whose regulatory milestone is the most advanced for a non-light-water SMR design in the US regulatory framework.
8. EDF (Nuward): French nuclear company with Nuward SMR design in French regulatory assessment; its French nuclear expertise and its European utility relationships create the European SMR developer whose state-backed development and French nuclear regulator engagement serves the European utility market whose procurement frameworks favour European-designed nuclear technology over the US and UK SMR alternatives.
9. Newcleo: UK-Italian advanced reactor company with lead-cooled fast reactor design targeting used nuclear fuel as feedstock; its lead-cooled reactor technology and its used nuclear fuel utilisation create the advanced reactor startup whose fuel cycle innovation addresses both the waste management and the fuel security dimensions of nuclear energy's commercial sustainability beyond the immediate power generation application.
10. CNNC (ACP100 Linglong One): Chinese state nuclear company with ACP100 Linglong One SMR, the world's first grid-connected SMR, commissioned in Hainan in 2024; its operational commercial SMR and its Chinese domestic deployment create the nuclear company whose first-to-operate status provides the only actual commercial SMR operating data that all other SMR developers reference in their performance projections.