This week marked a critical moment in Tennessee Valley Authority history — following another large step into the nuclear world.
On Monday, officials announced the first deployment of Kairos Power’s advanced nuclear reactor — the Hermes 2 Plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee — through a new power purchase agreement between it and TVA.
This was the first purchase of electricity from an advanced GEN IV reactor by a U.S. utility, and the agreement enabled 50 megawatts of nuclear energy on TVA’s grid to power Google data centers in Montgomery County, Tennessee, and Jackson County, Alabama.
Long-term collaboration with Kairos Power reportedly began last October, as 500 MW of nuclear power from the U.S. electricity system needed to be unlocked through multiple deployments from their small modular reactor.
It is this “next step,” officials say, that’s creating a three-party solution where energy customers, utilities, and technology developers work together to advance new technologies that can help meet the world’s growing energy needs with reliable, affordable capacity.
How does it work? Well, TVA will purchase electricity from Kairos Power’s Hermes 2 plant, which scheduled to come online in 2030. In this initial phase of the collaboration, Google will procure clean energy attributes from the plant through TVA to help power its data centers in the region with locally sourced clean energy, every hour of every day.
In a written statement, Don Moul, CEO of TVA, said nuclear remains the “bedrock of the future of energy security,” and that Google stepping in and helping shoulder the burden of the cost and risk for first-of-a-kind nuclear projects not only helps Google get to those solutions, but it keeps TVA from “having to burden [its] customers with development of that technology.” He called this measure not only good for Google, but “good for TVA’s 10 million customers,” and “good for the United States.”
According to Google, this project will continue to expand pathways to economic opportunity in Oak Ridge — which, again, is the site of the biggest technological breakthroughs and advancements in nuclear history.
Leaders believe the Kairos Power’s Hermes 2 Demonstration Plant will help re-establish Oak Ridge as a nuclear innovation hub, including through new programs developed in partnership with the University of Tennessee and other local universities to grow local workforce talent for high-paying jobs as plant operators and engineers.
Also of note this week: officials from TVA announced Tuesday that another preliminary peak in demand has been observed and met this summer — when, on Tuesday, average temperatures across the seven-state grid were 96 degrees.
Roughly 32,270 megawatts were asked of and supplied by the electric system, surpassing the record 31,888 megawatts asked for and provided on July 30.
