AEP, Amazon and X-energy eye 960 MW SMR plant in Indiana

American Electric Power (AEP) and X-energy will study building a 960 MW nuclear plant of twelve Xe-100 small modular reactors at a retired coal station in Sullivan County, Indiana. Amazon is funding development and intends to buy the electricity. If it is built, the plant would be the second grid-scale project from Amazon and X-energy's nuclear partnership, but it has no investment decision or licence application yet.

Key facts

• AEP and X-energy signed a joint development agreement on October 19 to evaluate a 12-unit Xe-100 plant on AEP-owned land at the former Breed Generating Station.
• The plant would total 960 MW from 12 reactors of 80 MW each, arranged as three four-unit blocks of 320 MW.
• Amazon will provide development funding and intends to sign a long-term power purchase agreement covering the facility's costs and operations for the contract's duration. Neither amount has been disclosed.
• Amazon says the project could create more than 1,000 construction jobs and more than 100 permanent roles.
• It is X-energy's third announced US commercial Xe-100 project and fourth worldwide, inside a commercial pipeline of about 11.5 GW.

What happened

X-energy announced the agreement from Rockville, Maryland, on Monday. Under it, the reactor developer and AEP will evaluate the feasibility of a 960 MW Xe-100 plant near the former Breed Generating Station, a coal-fired plant once run by AEP's Indiana Michigan Power (I&M) subsidiary. The site is a brownfield that AEP already owns, according to X-energy's release.

Amazon's role has two parts. It will fund certain development work through a separate agreement, and it plans to be the plant's first customer, buying its output under a long-term contract. AEP chairman and chief executive Bill Fehrman said the agreements "will provide all necessary capital protections and financial safeguards" for the utility and its customers. In Amazon's announcement, Josh Weissman, its vice president for data center delivery, said the partners are "looking to develop nearly a gigawatt of carbon-free power" for the regional grid and Amazon's data centers.

The companies were clear that this is not yet a construction project. According to World Nuclear News, the plant would go ahead only if development reaches a final investment decision. None of the three companies gave a licensing pathway, construction start, operating date or cost estimate.

Why it matters

The deal tackles the hardest problem in US utility nuclear: who carries the cost and schedule risk of a first fleet. Under this structure, a large buyer pays for development and commits to buy power on terms meant to cover the plant's costs. That keeps the risk off I&M's regulated customers. POWER notes that Amazon tied the project to its signing of the White House Ratepayer Protection Pledge, under which it pays the full cost of serving its data centers. NNN's data-center nuclear tracker shows that most hyperscaler nuclear deals so far buy power from existing plants. New-build agreements such as this one are rarer, and most are still frameworks rather than binding purchases.

It also tests whether a single reactor design can be repeated. The Indiana plan copies the size and layout of Energy Northwest's Cascade Advanced Energy Facility in Washington state, which is also planned as twelve Xe-100s and 960 MW built in 320 MW blocks. POWER reported in October 2025 that Cascade was targeting construction by 2030. Two utilities ordering the same configuration would let X-energy spread engineering, supply chain and licensing work across both projects. That repetition is how SMR vendors say their costs will fall.

For Indiana, the project would turn a retired coal site into baseload capacity that can use the existing transmission connection. Sullivan County recently joined the state's Indiana Advanced Nuclear Ready Communities Program. Indiana has supported advanced nuclear since 2025 through tax credits and that community program, according to X-energy.

Background

The Xe-100 is an 80 MWe high-temperature gas-cooled reactor. It is cooled by helium and fueled with TRISO particles, uranium kernels coated in carbon and ceramic layers (see NNN's TRISO explainer). A four-unit plant produces 320 MWe and can supply electricity or high-temperature steam for industry. X-energy's first deployment is a four-unit plant for Dow at its Seadrift site on the Texas Gulf Coast. X-energy says that project is in the final phases of NRC construction permit review. The design is also in the UK's regulatory pipeline: NNN covered the Xe-100 entering Generic Design Assessment last month.

Amazon became an X-energy shareholder in 2024, when it led the developer's Series C-1 round. That round closed at $700 million and funds reactor design, licensing and the first phase of the TRISO-X fuel plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The two companies aim to bring more than 5 GW of new nuclear capacity onto the US grid by 2039. Fuel supply is a separate constraint: the Xe-100 runs on high-assay low-enriched uranium, which X-energy has contracted for under its HALEU agreement with Centrus. NNN's SMR explainer and ranking of SMR developers put X-energy's progress alongside its competitors'.

AEP already has nuclear operating experience. I&M runs the 2,278 MW Donald C. Cook plant in Michigan, and X-energy chief executive J. Clay Sell pointed to AEP's 50 years of nuclear operations as a reason for the partnership.

What's next

The joint development agreement starts a feasibility phase covering site characterisation, cooling options, cost and the regulatory route. Milestones to watch are disclosure of Amazon's funding and contract terms, a decision on whether AEP or a separate entity would own the plant, and any NRC filing for the Breed site. AEP will also need approvals from Indiana regulators as the project develops.

The timeline will depend heavily on how Seadrift fares. A construction permit for Dow's plant would show whether the Xe-100 can be licensed, before the twelve-unit fleets planned for Washington and Indiana have to prove they can be built on schedule and on budget.