Amazon, Dominion agree to explore nuclear development

With power consumption by data centers and AI projected to more than quadruple in Virginia in the next 15 years, Amazon.com and Dominion Energy Virginia have entered into an agreement to explore potential development of small modular nuclear reactors at North Anna Power Station in Louisa County, the two companies announced during an Oct. 16 event at Amazon’s HQ2 East Coast headquarters in Arlington County.

Dominion and Amazon’s memorandum of understanding means the companies will “jointly explore innovative ways to advance SMR development and financing while also mitigating potential cost and development risks for customers and capital providers,” according to Dominion’s announcement.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin, U.S. Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner and Dominion Energy Virginia President Ed Baine were at the event, among other state and national dignitaries.

“Nuclear is a safe source of carbon-free energy that can help power our operations and meet the growing demands of our customers, while helping us progress toward our Climate Pledge commitment to be net-zero carbon across our operation by 2040,” Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman said in a statement.

Only two SMRs are in operation worldwide — one in Russia and the other in China — and Virginia likely won’t have its own SMR before the mid-2030s.

Over the past couple of years, SMRs have been a big part of Virginia’s energy conversation, especially as data center growth has put more demands on the state’s power grid. In a May earnings call, Dominion Energy CEO Bob Blue said that the utility is receiving more requests to power larger data center campuses with increased energy demands of 60 to 90 megawatts per building, or several gigawatts for multibuilding campuses.

“There are a number of things that are driving energy demand within Virginia,” Baine says. “Data centers [are] absolutely one of the big ones, but there’s also manufacturer electrification that is also increasing demand.”

Dominion announced in July that it had issued a request for proposals to evaluate the feasibility for a small nuclear reactor to be developed at its North Anna power plant, where it has two conventional, large nuclear reactors.

In October’s agreement, Amazon has agreed to explore the development of an SMR project near North Anna, bringing “at least 300 megawatts of power to the Virginia region, where Dominion projects that power demands will increase by 85% over the next 15 years.”