X-energy and American Electric Power will study a 960 MW advanced nuclear plant at a retired coal station in Sullivan County, Indiana, with Amazon funding development work and positioned to buy the plant's output. The companies announced a joint development agreement on Oct. 19 covering feasibility work on 12 X-energy Xe-100 small modular reactors at the former Breed Generating Sta
Editorial rendering of an X-energy advanced energy facility multi-module reactor complex layout.tion, a plant retired by AEP subsidiary Indiana Michigan Power.
Amazon's contribution is milestone-based, and if the project is built and enters commercial operation the company would purchase the power under a long-term contract that covers the cost of the facility and its operations, according to Utility Dive. The 12 reactors would sit in three groups of four, 320 MW per group.
That financing shape is the part other developers are watching, not the reactor count. AEP chairman, president and chief executive Bill Fehrman said the agreements carry "all necessary capital protections and financial safeguards that we have said are essential for any potential nuclear project to move forward."
Josh Weissman, Amazon's vice president of data center infrastructure capacity delivery, tied the deal to who pays. "We're looking to develop nearly a gigawatt of carbon-free power for the regional grid and pay our full costs without passing them to others," he said.
It is Amazon's second nuclear commitment in two weeks. On Sept. 30 the company signed a 20-year, 690 MW power purchase agreement with Constellation Energy to expand Maryland's Calvert Cliffs plant. [World Nuclear News](https://world-nuclear-news.org/articles/aep-amazon-and-x-energy-plan-12-smr-plant) reports the Indiana project is the second deployment under an Amazon and X-energy collaboration that targets more than 5 GW of new US nuclear capacity by 2039.
The grid is why Indiana is in play. Indiana Michigan Power has told regulators it expects peak load in the state to pass 7,000 MW by 2030, up from 2,800 MW, as large loads connect. Indiana approved large-load interconnection rules last year under a pact filed by the utility with Amazon Data Services, Google, Microsoft and other parties. Sullivan County is enrolled in the state's Advanced Nuclear Ready Communities Program, which flags counties that have taken steps to accept advanced nuclear development.
Baxtel tracks 146 data center facilities in Indiana, operated by 46 providers. Amazon AWS is the state's largest operator with 33 sites, including its New Carlisle campuses near South Bend, and the largest single facility in the Indiana market is Google: Zodiac 1 at 100 MW.
The Xe-100 is a high-temperature, helium-cooled pebble bed reactor rated at roughly 80 MW of electricity per unit. First-of-a-kind reactor builds are where budgets and schedules slip, and neither company has published a cost estimate or a construction start date.
Read the announcement as an option on carbon-free capacity for the 2030s, not a fix for the power crunch Amazon faces this decade. The model behind it is the one that can deliver. If hyperscalers keep underwriting feasibility work and agree to cover full costs, the SMR pipeline moves from studies to steel. Utilities will not carry first-of-a-kind risk alone, and Indiana shows they no longer have to.
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