NuScale and private asset manager Habboush Group are forming a strategic alliance to advance the deployment of NuScale small modular reactor nuclear projects.

The alliance includes private investment platform ENTRA1 and aims to provide a ‘one-stop shop’ for the financing, investment, development, management and execution of projects related to NuScale’s SMR.

“We hope that this strategic partnership will increase access to our trailblazing SMR technology and the carbon-free electrical power that the world needs,” said NuScale president and chief executive officer John Hopkins.

NuScale is working to commercialise and deploy its SMR as part of the Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP) at the Idaho National Lab by the end of the decade. The plant would deploy six, 77-megawatt modules to generate 462MW of electricity. The first module would go online in 2029.

Portland-based NuScale’s design uses natural, “passive” processes such as convection and gravity in its operating systems and safety features, and the reactor modules are all submerged in a safety-related pool built below ground level.

NuScale’s power module is a small pressurised water reactor. The company offers a 12-module VOYGR-12 (924 MWe) and a four-module VOYGR-4 (308 MWe), in addition to a six-module VOYGR-6. VOYGR is the official name of NuScale’s small modular reactor.

In August, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission moved to issue a final rule certifying NuScale’s SMR design for use in the US.