Grant PUD Joins Tri Energy Partnership to Build First Commercial Advanced Nuclear Reactor

Grant County PUD, Energy Northwest and X-energy have established a partnership, the Tri Energy Partnership, to develop and build a commercial advanced nuclear reactor, the first in the nation.

"We were seeing through our planning a need for dependable capacity to meet our growing retail load needs," said Kevin Nordt, Grant PUD Chief Executive Officer. "As we looked around, we said 'what do we have that's available long term to meet those needs that's going to provide firm, dependable type of power and also be carbon free?' We started to identify small modular nuclear as a promising area to explore."

The Grant PUD found Energy Northwest shared the same pursuit and X-energy also offered similar interest. The three will collaborate resources to build and operate a Xe-100 advanced nuclear power plant north of Richland.

Representative Dan Newhouse was in attendance for the signing of the partnership.