For the last couple of years, in every press release it issues, NuScale Power (SMR -3.20%) makes a point of mentioning that it has "the first and only [small modular nuclear reactor] to have its designs certified by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission." This year, NuScale Power may need to make a change to that statement.
As of May 2025, NuScale can proudly point out that it is "The only company with two SMRs whose designs are certified" by the NRC.
Image source: Getty Images.
SMR's big PR announcement
The press release dropped just a couple of weeks ago, on May 29. Building on work from its previously NRC-approved 50 MWe SMR design, NuScale has received NRC design approval for an uprated 250 MWt NuScale Power Module that can put out more than 50% more power, the equivalent of 77 megawatts.
And working with "American independent global energy production company" and partner ENTRA1 Energy, which holds the global exclusive rights to the commercialization, distribution, and deployment of NuScale's SMRs, NuScale's closer than ever to moving past being just another nuclear research and development shop and becoming a real revenue-generating, profit-earning company.
Maybe.
Promises and calendars
"The uprate approval by the U.S. regulatory authority increases the power output per module from NuScale's previously approved 50 MWe design," explains NuScale, enabling ENTRA1 Energy Plants to service a broader array of potential power customers for the SMR nuclear power plants it hopes to build.
That sounds pretty nice, but despite the progress, NuScale and ENTRA1 don't expect to begin "deployment" of their reactors before 2030. Analysts seem broadly in agreement with this timeline. NuScale generated annual revenue of $37 million last year, with the company's annual report explaining that this money comes from "engineering and licensing fees and services in support of advancing RoPower's goal of deploying a NuScale 6-module power plant in Romania."
As that project progresses, revenue should grow, tripling to more than $157 million next year, for example, and approaching $1.4 billion by 2030. That's the first year, by the way, that Wall Street analysts polled by S&P Global Market Intelligence expect NuScale to earn a profit.
So long as those estimates don't change, you can probably assume development of the first reactor site is on track, and NuScale is on course to begin generating nuclear power that year.
Are NuScale's plans realistic?
And here's the thing that investors willing to speculate on an unproven stock with a proven (or at least NRC-certified) technology need to realize: NuScale could make the deadline that it and the analysts have set for it.
Consider that the U.S. Government Accountability Office estimates "it takes from 10 to 12 years total to plan, license, and build a nuclear powerplant." Obtaining the NRC license, or certification, is supposed to consume four of these years. (It actually took NuScale nearly six years.) Construction after approval should take at least six more years. So, depending on whether you count from January 2023, when SMR received its initial design certification, or from May 2025, when it received its second, 2030 sounds like just about the right date for construction of a new plant to wrap up, and operations (and revenue and profits) to begin flowing.
A more recent report on nuclear plant construction timelines, this time from the U.S. Energy Information Agency, further notes that "the NRC application review process can take up to five years to complete" -- which is about how long it took for NuScale to get its first certification. EIA further notes that "under current licensing regulations, a company that seeks to build a new reactor can use reactor designs that the NRC has approved."
That means that once NuScale has its first nuclear plant set up, further additional plants should be able to be built much quicker, utilizing the already certified design to basically cut the 10- to 12-year timeline in half.
The upshot for investors
Long story short, while it's not going to be a lot of fun for investors to have to wait around five years to see if NuScale will or won't end up being able to earn a profit from the nuclear power business, the five-year timeline does at least look reasonably achievable.
That's the good news.
The bad news is that even if NuScale does turn a profit in 2030, at $38.82 in share price today, and $0.26 per share projected profit for 2030, the stock already costs nearly 150 times earnings -- which it won't actually earn for another five years, if then.
Investors buying into NuScale stock today need to recognize that in a situation like this one, they're not really investing in a sure thing, so much as speculating on a venture that might or might not pan out many years from now. That's not exactly my cup of tea, but so long as you're OK with that, NuScale stock can still be the right stock for you.
