BELLEVUE, Wash. — TerraPower, the Gates-owned power company responsible for Kemmerer’s future Natrium nuclear plant, announced today the signing of a memorandum of understanding between itself and Sabey Data Centers. The agreement would, according to the companies, seek to develop a plan to use Natrium plants to power growing data center demands.
Per the memorandum, future Natrium plants would go up all across the Rocky Mountain region and Texas to support the data centers as they grow to require more and more energy.
What the implementation of this idea looks like is still yet to be determined. Included in a company press release, TerraPower said that multiple “project execution structures” will be developed to meet the exact needs of SDC.
TerraPower President and CEO Chris Levesque said that this opportunity presents the companies with a solution to meet the growing power demands of computers with clean and reliable energy.
“The energy sector is transforming at an unprecedented pace after decades of business as usual, and meaningful progress will require strategic collaboration across industries,” Levesque said. “Together, we can ensure advanced nuclear technology plays a vital role in securing a clean, resilient energy grid.”
The first TerraPower plant, going up in Kemmerer, Wyoming, will capacitate a 345 MW sodium-cooled reactor — the first of its kind on the continent. According to TerraPower, the storage tech can increase to up to 500 MW when needed.
“The energy storage system is designed to keep base output steady, ensuring constant reliability, and can quickly ramp up when demand peaks — it is the only advanced reactor design with this unique feature, and is well suited to meet the power demands of data centers,” the company said in a release.
Also according to the release, power needs of data centers much like the ones SDC utilizes are expected to need up to 323 terawatt hours annually by the next decade. With Natrium plants nearby to supply that power in a clean and reliable way, according to TerraPower, those demands can be reasonably met.
The first step, however, is to get the first plant operational and secure the technology’s future in America. Progress for the first plant is ongoing and can be followed along as Oil City News continues reporting. For more information, see Oil City News’s most recent reporting.
More information can also be found at TerraPower’s and SDC’s websites.