The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) will be the first US utility company to source electricity from a so-called Generation IV reactor. Together with Google and reactor developer Kairos Power, the largest public US power company signed an agreement to provide up to 50 megawatts to the grid in Tennessee.

The Hermes-2 reactor by Kairos, cooled with molten fluoride salt, is so far the only advanced design to receive a construction permit from the US regulatory body Nuclear Regulatory Commission in November 2024. Commercial operation is planned no earlier than 2030, with additional facilities by 2035. The US Department of Energy supports the project with about 300 million dollars under the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program.

For Google, the agreement is an important component to secure the increasing energy needs of its data centers in Alabama and Tennessee. Although the electricity is not delivered directly to the servers, the company receives corresponding certificates for fed-in emission-free electricity. Amanda Peterson Corio, Google's global head for data center energy, emphasized that the cooperation helps to meet the needs of the digital economy while stabilizing the grid with "firm carbon-free energy.

Technology companies are among the drivers of the nuclear renaissance. Amazon, Meta and Microsoft have also entered into agreements with nuclear companies. Most recently, the data center operator Equinix ordered 20 reactors from the start-up Radiant Nuclear and secured a supply agreement for 500 megawatts with Oklo.

Proponents of small modular reactors (SMR) point out that these units deliver under 300 megawatts, can be produced in series, and installed transportably. Thus, they should be available faster and cheaper than large power plants, of which only three new ones have gone online in the USA in the past 20 years.

Kairos CEO Mike Laufer explained that the collaboration with TVA and Google is an "important step to make advanced nuclear technology commercially competitive." For TVA, it is also a signal: The company is the first US utility to rely on the next generation of nuclear power to meet the growing demand for AI-driven electricity consumption.