Holtec targets first SMR-300 deployment at Michigan’s Palisades plant

Holtec has launched “Mission 2030,” a programme to build small modular reactors – Holtec’s SMR-300 – at the Palisades plant in Covert Township, Michigan, with a target of 2030 for first commercial operation.

The new SMR-300s will be co-located with the existing 800MW Palisades plant, which is on track to restart after an extended outage following shutdown in 2022.

In the SMR launch ceremony held at the Palisades site, milestones in Holtec’s site preparation work for the SMR-300s were spotlighted and included signing of an expanded alliance agreement with Hyundai Engineering & Construction to build a 10GW fleet of SMR-300s in North America through the 2030s, beginning with the landmark Palisades SMR project.

Since announcing the Palisades SMR-300 project in 2023, Holtec said it has made “substantial” progress, including site and environmental studies to choose a location for the plant within the Palisades property, establishment of a groundwater monitoring programme, and completion of soil borings.

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Holtec has invested over $50 million to date in the SMR-300 site development and environmental activities, keeping its schedule to start the formal US Nuclear Regulatory Commission construction permitting process early next year.

In preparation for construction of the Palisades SMR-300 plant, Holtec signed an expanded cooperation agreement with Hyundai E&C for SMR-300 construction, expanding prior collaboration forged in 2021. The partnership is intended to enable scaling of the SMR-300 programme based on learnings from the first-of-a-kind SMR-300 project at Palisades.

“The key to making SMR deployment faster and more cost-effective isn’t just learning from the industry—it’s applying those lessons directly to each new project,” said Holtec’s president of Global Clean Energy Opportunities, Dr Rick Springman. “With Holtec’s in-house manufacturing and Hyundai E&C as our construction partner, we control most of the process, allowing us to refine and improve with every reactor we build. That’s how we scale smarter and deliver reliable energy where it’s needed most.”

Holtec’s SMR-300 is an advanced, pressurised light water nuclear power plant, each unit designed to produce 300MW of energy.. As an advanced Generation 3+ reactor, it uses gravity as the motive force to run its safety systems, earning the “walk-away safe” designation.

Read more: Small modular reactors: The key to decarbonising the industry sector in the European Union?

Don’t call it a comeback

Palisades, likely to become the US’ first shut-down nuclear power plant to be recommissioned, is on track to restart in August 2025, according to an update last summer from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The 800MW facility in Covert Township, Michigan, would be upgraded to produce baseload power until at least 2051. Once complete, this project will be the first recommissioning of a retired nuclear power plant in U.S. history.

Holtec acquired the plant in June 2022 just after it was shut down. In early 2023, the company applied for federal loan funding to repower Palisades, which it received in the form of a $1.5 billion loan.

Last May, Holtec announced several milestones, including re-establishing the plant’s workforce, revitalising training programmes, procurement of plant systems and components, regulatory developments and firming up of funding streams. Holtec said more than 360 employees were working at the plant, an increase of nearly 150 personnel since the re-start began. The recruitment includes both former plant employees and new hires.

In September 2024, the US Department of Energy (DOE) announced the closing of a loan guarantee of up to $1.52 billion to Holtec to help finance the restoration and resumption of service of the Palisades plant. DOE facilitated the loan through its Loan Programs Office (LPO), under the Inflation Reduction Act’s Energy Infrastructure Reinvestment (EIR) programme. It represented a first-of-a-kind effort by DOE to restart an American nuclear power plant.

Holtec Palisades has already signed long-term Power Purchase Agreements for the full power output with rural electric co-ops Wolverine Power Cooperative and Hoosier Energy, which serve rural communities in Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana.

Support has been especially vocal for re-opening Palisades. In May 2023 a bipartisan group of Michigan lawmakers that make up a newly-formed nuclear energy caucus wrote a letter to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer expressing “full support” for the reopening of the plant. Whitmer herself has supported reopening Palisades as more solar and wind power infrastructure is built out.

Palisades began commercial operation in 1971.

Originally published by Sean Wolfe on power-eng.com