It's Wednesday. Nuclear's new pitch is to stop building one-off giants and build the same small reactor over and over. Tennessee just got the US permit for the first copy.
In today's edition:
☢️ Big Story: TVA's small reactor permit
⚡ Quick Hits: solid-state transformers, grid-forming inverters, New York's underused new line, closed-loop geothermal, solar passes nuclear
💰 Capital: Reverion's $175M Series B
📋 Policy Watch: grid utilization, India's battery grid code, governors vs data centers
📊 Chart of the Day: Australia's home battery rush
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The Big Story
NRC clears TVA to build the first US BWRX-300 small reactor
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued TVA a construction permit on Sept. 29 for a 300 MWe GE Vernova Hitachi BWRX-300 at its Clinch River site in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, ANS Nuclear Newswire reported. It is the design's first US permit and second in North America, after Ontario Power Generation's Darlington. TVA targets commercial operation in the early 2030s.
"The Clinch River project represents the next chapter in our state's legacy of innovation, strengthening America's energy security and creating opportunity for generations to come."
It is the second US commercial reactor construction permit in nearly a decade, following TerraPower's Natrium permit in March.
TVA earned an early site permit for Clinch River in 2019 and signed its agreement with GE Hitachi in 2022.
GE Vernova Hitachi pitches it as a step toward a fleet model, reusing one standard design's licensing and supply chain project to project.
Source: ANS Nuclear Newswire, GE Vernova
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Quick Hits
Technology milestones from across the grid
Five hardware and data milestones, from AI power rooms to 3 km underground.
DG Matrix will pair its solid-state transformer with a TerraFlow vanadium flow battery to power a planned Dell GPU cluster on Nvidia's 800 VDC architecture, its first real-load deployment, and says $700 million to $900 million in orders are close. Latitude Media
SMA's Sunny Central UP-S became the first battery inverter certified under Germany's grid-forming guideline for the Momentanreserve inertia market, which pays up to €888.50 per MWs for over 90% availability. Energy-Storage.news
Champlain Hudson Power Express ran at a 13% capacity factor in its first summer after a 20-day cable outage, Modo Energy found; on hot days when it ran, New York City's four-hour battery spread premium fell 80%. Modo Energy
Green Therma is pulling direct-use heat from more than 3 km down through a single-well closed loop at Germany's Groß Schönebeck site, ahead of a 30-year heat deal in Aalborg, Denmark. ThinkGeoEnergy
The World Nuclear Industry Status Report finds monthly solar output passed nuclear worldwide for the first time in April 2025, as solar generation grew 30% last year against nuclear's 1.1%. pv magazine USA
The Capital Stack
Reverion raises $175M to scale reversible power plants tenfold
Germany's Reverion closed a $175 million Series B led by Kembara, with Allianz, KfW Capital, Aurum Impact and Carbon Equity joining backers including Energy Impact Partners, the company said. It funds a German factory to lift output tenfold to 250 MW a year. Its solid-oxide plants run on biogas, natural gas or hydrogen and can flip into electrolysis mode, and the company claims a world-record 74.2% electrical efficiency in live customer operation. Seven commercial plants are running. The carbon-negative claim applies only when the plants run on biogas.
Source: Reverion
Also in the capital stack:
Samsung and five affiliates will invest $1 billion in Helix Digital Infrastructure, the Adam Selipsky-led company bundling hyperscale data centers with generation, transmission and fiber, alongside founding investors KKR, the Kuwait Investment Authority, Nvidia and Vistra. Samsung Newsroom
Policy Watch
Virginia's first-in-the-nation grid utilization law has Dominion and Appalachian Power filing measurement plans by mid-October while seven more states weigh similar rules, a metric that could steer spending toward getting more from existing wires. Latitude Media
India's CERC proposed grid code rules for standalone batteries: staged commissioning, primary frequency response for 10 MW-plus systems at 33 kV and above, and dispatch-center automatic control for 25 MW-plus plants, with comments due Oct. 21. Energy-Storage.news
Governor candidates are turning on data centers: 38 of 78 major-party candidates take restrictive positions and at least 30 back pauses or bans, a Heatmap op-ed by The Impact Project counts, putting large-load siting on 2026 ballots. Heatmap
Chart of the Day
Australia installed 276,011 home batteries in six months
Australian households installed 276,011 home batteries in the first half of 2026, up 52% on the previous six months, alongside 180,878 rooftop solar systems totaling 1,894 MW, Clean Energy Council data show. The Cheaper Home Batteries program passed 12.9 GWh in 12 months.
Source: RenewEconomy, data from the Clean Energy Council · September 28, 2026
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