Google, Kairos Power and the Tennessee Valley Authority announced a landmark agreement Monday to deploy one of the first advanced nuclear power purchase agreements, aiming to meet surging electricity demands from artificial intelligence data centers.
Under the deal, TVA will purchase up to 50 megawatts of electricity from Kairos Power’s planned Hermes 2 reactor in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The reactor will supply TVA’s system, which delivers power to Google’s data centers in Tennessee and Alabama, marking the first time a U.S. utility has signed a PPA for electricity from a Generation IV advanced reactor.
“This is a huge step towards future deployments. It demonstrates how a public power provider can team up with a tech developer and with a tech company,” said Scott Hunnewell, vice president of TVA’s New Nuclear Program, in an interview. “It really lays the architecture down to expand nuclear, to quickly develop the Kairos plants and for other people to follow our lead.”
“Advanced reactor” is an umbrella term that typically refers to small modular reactors or Gen IV reactors, the latter of which use a substance other than water as a coolant. Hermes 2 would be both an SMR and a Gen IV.
