On July 17, 2026, NANO Nuclear Energy joined the Virginia Nuclear Energy Consortium (VNEC), with CEO James Walker taking a seat on its board. The company intends to use its membership to build relationships with organizations examining power sources for data centers and other large-load customers. However, the announcement includes no candidate construction site or customer within Virginia, and no generating capacity, deployment contract, or construction timeline has been disclosed. What moved forward is not a commercial power plant but access to a network connecting the state's nuclear industry and policy circles.
In Virginia, data center power demand has already reached several gigawatts, and the state and utilities are working out large-load customer rate structures and examining how to secure future power sources. Bringing a micro-reactor into that market would require converting membership into a site, a power purchase agreement, and licensing. NANO Nuclear's flagship reactor, the KRONOS MMR, has entered formal review by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), but the current application concerns a research reactor in Illinois.
A Point of Contact With the State's Nuclear Network, Not a Customer
VNEC is a nonstock nonprofit corporation established under Virginia state law. The same law separately creates the Virginia Nuclear Energy Consortium Authority as a political subdivision of the state, while explicitly stating that VNEC itself is not a state government agency. Membership is envisioned to include in-state universities, research institutions, and nuclear-related companies, with other individuals and organizations able to join upon approval by the board of directors.
The VNEC board that James Walker has joined includes representatives from Dominion Energy as well as Framatome, X-energy, TerraPower, NuScale Power, GE Hitachi, and others. Being able to engage in business development and policy advocacy alongside nuclear supply-side players, utilities, and universities in the same forum is a practical advantage for NANO Nuclear. At the same time, this lineup also shows that membership does not represent exclusive technology selection.
VNEC's 2025–2029 strategic plan sets forth key goals including supporting the deployment of advanced reactors and small modular reactors (SMRs), establishing research and educational reactors, securing funding, and developing supply chains and workforce. Data centers are cited as a candidate use case for always-on power, alongside hospitals and military facilities. NANO Nuclear's membership provides an entry point to pitch its technology within this plan, but it does not imply state adoption, subsidies, or an order from Dominion.
Power Demand Ballooning From 4GW to 16.6GW
According to materials Dominion Energy submitted to PJM in January 2026, data centers within its service territory recorded a coincident peak demand of 4GW in 2025. The company forecasts that demand will reach 16.6GW by 2046.
On the other hand, utilities do not simply add up the capacity figures indicated by customers to arrive at future demand. As of July 2025, the contracted capacity Dominion had on record totaled 47GW, broken down as 9.8GW under electric service agreements, 7.1GW in the construction phase, and 30.1GW at the technical review stage. That last figure, 30.1GW, carries no construction obligation for customers. The very fact that Dominion distinguishes between the 47GW capacity figure and the 16.6GW demand forecast reflects that not all projects under consideration will actually come online.
The state's oversight body, JLARC, has reported that large newly built data centers now exceed 100MW to 200MW, with planned campuses in some cases surpassing 1,000MW. On the generation side, once output capacity is determined, backup power must be designed for continuous operation and maintenance outages, and reserve margins and transmission interconnection must also be secured. While the scale of demand creates a business opportunity for micro-reactors, without indicating the number of modules required and pricing, they cannot be incorporated into power planning.
In November 2025, the Virginia State Corporation Commission approved a GS-5 rate class targeting large-load customers of 25MW or more. Starting January 1, 2027, eligible customers will pay a minimum of 85% of contracted transmission and distribution demand and a minimum of 60% of generation demand. Alongside policies aimed at attracting data centers, the state has begun putting in place mechanisms to prevent the costs of inaccurate demand forecasts from being shifted onto other ratepayers. New power sources, too, will be judged on economic viability within this cost-allocation framework.
Between a 45MWth Research Reactor and Data Center Power
The KRONOS MMR under NRC review is a high-temperature gas reactor. It uses TRISO fuel, which encases UCO fuel kernels in multiple layers, with those layers serving as part of the radioactive material containment function. The primary coolant, helium, carries heat from the reactor core to a molten salt thermal energy storage system. In this configuration, the storage system links the reactor's heat with the power generation equipment.
The output figure listed on the NRC's site is 45MWth—that is, thermal output. During power generation, losses in converting heat to electricity and in-house power consumption mean the electrical output will be smaller than the thermal output. The NRC's project page does not indicate net electrical output, so it cannot be directly compared with the 100MW electrical demand figures cited for data centers. A commercial proposal would require per-unit output at the transmission end, including power conversion equipment.
The current applicant is the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, with the construction site located in Champaign County, Illinois. The purpose is a construction permit for a research reactor, not a commercial data center power plant in Virginia. The application was submitted on March 31, 2026, and accepted on May 18. Per the NRC's review schedule, the final environmental assessment is due in May 2027, with the final safety evaluation due in September of that year.
Even if the construction permit is granted, operation will not begin immediately. The NRC explains that the university must separately apply for and obtain an operating license before commencing operations. Furthermore, to advance a commercial project in Virginia, the site and applicant entity would need to be determined, and the output as generating equipment, the arrangement of multiple reactors, redundancy during maintenance, and fuel procurement would all need to be worked out concretely. VNEC membership does not shorten this licensing process.
Dominion's North Anna Project Leads Within the State
The concrete SMR project advancing within the state centers on Dominion Energy's North Anna Power Station. The company issued a request for technology proposals in July 2024 and has been examining a development framework with Amazon. According to a work plan compiled by a Virginia legislative committee in June 2026, the target timeframe is the mid-2030s, with technology selection, costs, and a realistic schedule remaining items to be confirmed.
State law also provides a path for utilities to recover early SMR development costs through rates, capped at $25 million per year and $125 million cumulatively. However, this excludes the costs of obtaining construction permits or combined licenses, as well as the costs of main construction itself. Even with a mechanism in place to recover investigation and design costs through electricity rates, separate review and financing decisions remain before construction can proceed.
In May 2026, NANO Nuclear signed a memorandum of understanding with Supermicro to explore integrating power sources for data centers. However, the company's announcement explicitly states that this memorandum is non-binding and may not progress to a firm contract or revenue-generating project. Joining VNEC is a further business development step bringing the company closer to sales channels and supply chains, but based on currently disclosed materials, it cannot be read as an order received.
The first turning point will come when NANO Nuclear or a partner identifies a site and power purchaser within Virginia and advances to a binding contract. Only then can electrical output and the number of reactors required be finalized, allowing pricing and operational timing to be compared against the state's demand forecasts. For KRONOS itself, the finalization of the safety evaluation expected in September 2027 marks the next concrete deadline. Whether applications and customers for Virginia follow around that time will determine whether the consortium membership can be converted into an actual power generation plan.