US small modular reactor (SMR) startup Last Energy has received a tentative offer of $103.7 million in debt financing from the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) to build the first of four SMRs in the UK.
First reported by Reuters, Last Energy said it had received a Letter of Interest (LOI) from the US government-run export bank. The LOI is a non-binding agreement that provides general financing terms.
"Upon final commitment, the bank’s facility would cover Last Energy’s entire costs for a single power plant installation," the company said in a statement.
Last Energy plans to build four 20MW pressurized water microreactors at its site in Bridgend, southern Wales. The first reactor could reach operational status as early as 2027.
The microreactors, which provide consistent low-carbon baseload power, have the potential to power mid-sized industrial projects and data centers.
EXIM was shut in 2015 after Congress blocked it from reauthorization. It was subsequently reopened in 2019, following support from then-President Donald Trump.
Last year, Last Energy struck a deal to sell 24 SMRs to UK customers. The company also agreed to sell ten units to Poland, with the first coming onstream next year.
Under its business model, the company owns the reactors and sells the power to the country where they are located under long-term contracts
SMR technology has gained traction in the data center sector over 2024, with several major companies signing long-term commitments.
Oklo has signed four deals in the sector. Last month, the company partnered with two undisclosed data center providers to deliver up to 750MW of power. This followed previous agreements with Equinix and Prometheus for 500MW and 100MW of nuclear power, respectively.
In October, AWS signed three agreements with Energy Northwest, X-Energy, and Dominion Virginia to support the deployment of more than 600MW of power across Washington and Virginia.
Before this, Google signed a corporate agreement to purchase nuclear energy from multiple SMRs from Karios Power, with an expected deployment date in 2030. The supplier Kairos recently received construction permits from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for its Hermes Two Demonstration Plant at the Heritage Center Industrial Park in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
