TerraPower and Meta have announced an agreement to develop up to eight sodium cooled Natrium fast-reactors-with-energy-storage in the United States. This would provide Meta with up to 2.8 GW of carbon-free, baseload energy, the company says, with the Natrium technology’s innovative built-in energy storage system providing the capacity to boost total output to 4 GW of power.
Under this commercial agreement, Meta will provide funding to support the deployment of the Natrium plants, with delivery of initial units as early as 2032. This is Meta’s largest support of advanced nuclear technologies to date.
“To successfully address growing energy demand, we must deploy gigawatts of advanced nuclear energy in the 2030s. This agreement with Meta is designed to support the rapid deployment of our Natrium technology that provides the reliable, flexible, and carbon-free power our country needs,” said Chris Levesque, TerraPower president and CEO. “With our first Natrium plant under development, we have completed our design, established our supply chain, and cleared key regulatory milestones. These successes mean our TerraPower team is well-positioned to deliver on this historic multi-unit delivery agreement.”
“Meta is committed to supporting innovative energy solutions that can deliver reliable, scalable, and clean power for our operations and the communities we serve. This agreement with TerraPower – the result of Meta’s nuclear RFP process, which identified leading developers of nuclear energy to help us advance our energy goals – marks a significant step forward in advancing next-generation nuclear technology. Supporting new nuclear energy generation spurs job growth, drives innovation in our local communities, and reinforces America’s leadership in energy technology,” said Urvi Parekh, director of global energy, Meta.
The agreement supports the early development activities for two new Natrium units, with rights for energy provided to Meta for up to six additional Natrium units. Each Natrium reactor provides 345 MW of baseload power, with built-in energy storage that can ramp power up to 500 MW for over five hours. A dual Natrium unit can provide 690 MW of firm power, and up to 1 GW of dispatchable electricity. The companies say they will target identification of a specific site for the initial dual reactor unit in the coming months.
TerraPower describes Natrium, a TerraPower and GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy technology, as a “first mover” in the advanced reactor sector and believes it is leading the industry in its commercial readiness to support growing energy demand for data centres.
TerraPower has begun construction (albeit on non-nuclear parts of the power plant) in Wyoming on what it calls the first commercial-scale, advanced nuclear project in the United States, which is expected to be complete in 2030.
TerraPower, founded by Bill Gates and a group of “like-minded visionaries”, says its Natrium plant design is the only commercial advanced nuclear technology with a complete environmental impact statement and final safety review, as part of a construction permit application pending with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
