The merger is being handled through a Spac, or special purpose acquisition company. This type of merger typically requires minimum cash proceeds to the company that will assume the public listing. Those proceeds can be a combination of private investment (known as Pipe, for “private investment in public equity”) and money invested in the publicly traded Spac.
The Spac, Spring Valley Acquisition Corp, has $232m in trust, so with the commitment standing at $236m the merger could deliver more than $468m to NuScale.
NuScale, based in Oregon, announced plans in December to go public by way of a merger with Spring Valley Acquisition Corp, with the aim to establish a new entity called NuScale Power Corporation.
Last month NuScale said it had secured $10m in investment from California-based investment advisory firm SailingStone Capital Partners.
NuScale said the purpose of the merger is to create “a first-of-its-kind energy company poised to power the global energy transition by delivering safe, scalable and reliable carbon-free nuclear power”.
According to NuScale, Nucor is the largest and most diversified steel and steel products company in North America. Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, Nucor has more than 300 operating facilities and is also North America’s largest recycler, processing approximately 20 million toes of ferrous scrap annually to produce new steel that is 100% recyclable at the end of its useful life.
Nucor president and chief executive officer Leon Topalian said sustainability is driving the business decisions of leading companies and as America’s largest steel producer and a significant energy consumer, “we are looking for safe and reliable sources of power generation that are consistent with our sustainability goals”. He said: “The continued development of small modular nuclear reactors is critical to ensure our nation has carbon-free, baseload power, which is why we are making this investment in NuScale.”
In December 2021, NuScale announced the rebranding of its SMR portfolio and introduced the official Voygr name. The flagship project will be the Voygr-12 scalable power plant design, which can accommodate up to 12 power modules, resulting in a total gross output of 924 MW.
NuScale also offers smaller scalable power plant solutions – the four-module Voygr-4 (308 MW) and six-module Voygr-6 (462 MW).
The company said it can deliver the first Voygr power plant to a customer as soon as 2027, subject to customer needs and supported by its established supply chain partners.
In August 2020, the NuScale SMR became the first and so far only SMR to receive design approval from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, In July 2021, the NRC published the proposed rule that would certify the NuScale design – a crucial step towards the construction and deployment of the SMR technology.
NuScale and Fluor are working for Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (Uamps) to bring what could be the world’s first SMR project to commercialisation.
Uamps is scheduled to submit a construction licence application in 2023, and is aiming to start commercial operation of the first module in 2029.
