Italian power company Enel is finalizing the formation of a new small modular reactor (SMR) company with Ansaldo and Leonardo. The firm in which Enel will hold a majority stake is expected to be revealed in the coming days.
"On the nuclear newco, the majority will be ours, and I think it will be closed within days. It will focus on the study of new reactors," said Flavio Cattaneo, CEO of Enel.
In addition, the company has reported considerable interest from data center operators in building nuclear sites to support their operations.
"We will have received 40-50 letters of interest from funds and companies to build sites. There is a lot of interest. We have two types of data centers: one near the consumption sites and one far away. We are now refining the various availabilities, also using the power plants we have to close," Cattaneo said.
The major hurdle for Enel is understanding whether they require a law or authorization to proceed with the venture. However, the company stressed that they would move abroad to complete the organizational process if they didn't receive the requisite approval in the Italian market.
Enel is the second major power producer in the European market to explore nuclear energy for data center usage in recent months. Earlier this month, French utility EDF reported that it was in discussions with three data center providers about supplying power for up to three 1GW data center projects in France.
Despite increasing interest within the European market, the US has dominated the deal flow for nuclear procurement.
In September, Microsoft agreed to a 20-year PPA with Constellation Energy to acquire 100 percent of Pennsylvania's revived Three Mile Island nuclear power plant.
In March, Rival AWS acquired Talen Energy’s data center campus next to the Susquehanna Steam Electric Station nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania for $650 million.
In the SMR sector, AWS signed three agreements to facilitate the deployment of SMRs across its business operations. These included agreements with Energy Northwest and Dominion Energy and a direct investment in SMR firm X-energy.
A week earlier, Google announced a 500MW deal with SMR provider Kairos Power. The firm expects the first of the six to seven reactors under the agreement to come online in 2030.
