On November 8, 2023, NuScale Power Corporation (NuScale), based in Portland, Oregon, and Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) announced that they would terminate the Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP), which would have deployed a small modular reactor (SMR) developed by NuScale in Idaho. The direct cause of the termination was that the power purchase agreement rate did not reach 80% of the planned total power generation, but the reason behind this appears to be skyrocketing costs.
The project was attracting attention as the first SMR in the United States, and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) was providing financial support. However, this once again highlighted the difficulty of constructing the first SMR. In this paper, we provide an overview of the project, the issues involved, and the impact of its termination.