By Valerie Volcovici
WASHINGTON, June 23 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Energy announced on Tuesday a total of $17.5 billion in conditional loans for utilities and energy companies to purchase reactors and other infrastructure needed to rebuild the U.S. commercial nuclear supply chain.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told reporters that the loans will help the U.S. achieve its goal of having 10 new large-scale nuclear reactors under construction by 2030, potentially accelerating that timeline
by three years.
Wright said this has attracted strong interest from data center hyperscalers -- tech giants that run global cloud and computing infrastructure -- and energy companies as U.S. demand for electricity has soared with the rapid buildout of data centers to power U.S. artificial intelligence capabilities.
"We are confident that these projects will be economic for utility shareholders, ratepayers and hyperscalers," Wright told reporters.
The Energy Department's of Energy Dominance Financing, formerly known as the Loan Programs Office, will back up to to five loans, each of which will support two 1.1 gigawatt Westinghouse reactors at a project site.
Westinghouse will partner with up to five eligible utilities and energy companies nationwide who will procure the reactors and other "long-lead" supply chain needs at a fixed price.
Wright said that seven utilities have expressed interest so far but would not disclose their names or project locations.
Each project will be jointly owned by Westinghouse and a utility or energy company partner, who will each be required to to commit $500 million each before accessing DOE loan funds.
"This is not a risky endeavor," Wright said.
(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici, Editing by William Maclean)
