The U.S. Department of Energy is awarding more than $94 million in federal cost-shared funding across eight American companies to accelerate the near-term deployment of advanced light-water small modular reactors (SMRs). The selections, announced May 14, 2026, target the licensing, supply chain and site preparation gaps that have slowed Gen III+ SMR projects, and form a second tier under DOE's broader $900 million SMR de-risking solicitation issued in 2025.
Site permits, forgings and fuel: where the money goes
The largest two awards are aimed at clearing siting hurdles. Nebraska Public Power District gets $27.86 million to pursue a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission-approved Early Site Permit in Nebraska, and Constellation SMR Development gets $17.26 million for an Early Site Permit at a New York location. Early Site Permits front-load the geotechnical, environmental and population analyses required before a reactor can be sited, and have historically been one of the longest poles in any U.S. nuclear schedule.
The remaining six awards focus on supply chain. BWXT Nuclear Energy receives $21.42 million to equip its Mount Vernon, Indiana facility for final assembly of reactor pressure vessels and other large nuclear components. Framatome U.S. Government Solutions wins $8.8 million to expand a Richland, Washington fuel fabrication facility by adding ceramic pellet production lines, lifting capacity by roughly 200 metric tons of uranium per year. Global Nuclear Fuel Americas gets $3 million for a second fuel-rod production line and pellet automation in Wilmington, North Carolina.
Three further awards target heavy manufacturing: Scot Forge ($12.27 million) for a vertical turning lathe and gantry-style milling machine in Spring Grove, Illinois; American Forgemasters ($2.9 million) for a furnace in New Castle, Pennsylvania to produce large component forgings; and Container Technologies Industries ($547,900) to expand nuclear quality assurance certifications at a facility in Helenwood, Tennessee.
How this builds on the December Tier 1 awards
The new awards form the Tier 2 round under the DOE's Generation III+ SMR Pathway to Deployment Program. In December 2025, the DOE issued $800 million in Tier 1 awards to the Tennessee Valley Authority and Holtec Government Services to advance initial SMR projects in Tennessee and Michigan. The Tier 2 selections are designed to surround those headline reactor projects with the supply chain, fuel and licensing capacity needed to support follow-on orders in the 2030s. DOE said a further Tier 2 round could be issued if more funding becomes available.
Why now: load growth and the data center build-out
Energy Secretary Chris Wright framed the awards around "reliable, round-the-clock power" for manufacturing growth, data centers and the grid. SMRs sit at the intersection of two large bets in U.S. industrial policy: a nuclear renaissance backed by recent Trump administration executive orders, and the surging power demand created by AI compute build-out. Light-water SMRs are attractive to that demand profile because they use proven reactor technology, smaller footprints and modular construction that can be paired with existing nuclear supply chains.
How it lands in the global SMR landscape
The U.S. push is unfolding alongside accelerating activity abroad. We recently covered Blykalla's application to build Sweden's first six-SMR power plant, Russia's Kursk II VVER-TOI reactor crossing 2 billion kWh and Deep Fission's $157M Nasdaq IPO filing for buried reactors. Renewables continue to scale in parallel, including an 11% jump in US renewable generation in Q1 2026, but the DOE's emphasis on firm SMR capacity reflects a view that data-center-driven load growth needs sources that can deliver continuous output around the clock.
What to watch next
The most concrete near-term milestones are NRC site permit submissions from the Constellation and Nebraska Public Power awardees, and ramp dates for BWXT's reactor pressure vessel assembly capacity at Mount Vernon. Together, those choke points have arguably done more to delay U.S. SMR deployment than reactor design itself, and the Tier 2 awards are an explicit bet that infrastructure investment now can shave years off the next wave of projects.
Reporting based on coverage from the U.S. Department of Energy, energy.gov, ANS Nuclear Newswire and Neutron Bytes.