The Biden administration has announced “early stage” funding of up to $275m (€254m) for the deployment of a NuScale Power Voygr small modular reactor power plant at a coal plant site in Romania.

The public-private commitments will support procurement of long lead materials, phase two front-end engineering and design (Feed) work, site characterisation and regulatory analyses, and the development of schedules and budgets.

The White House said in a statement that when built, the SMR will “pave the way for new innovative energy technologies, accelerate the clean energy transition, create thousands of jobs, and strengthen European energy security while upholding the highest standards for nuclear safety, security, and nonproliferation”.