Amazon has unveiled updated plans for a small modular reactor (SMR) facility in the US state of Washington that will now be triple the original proposed size with 12 reactors producing a maximum of 960 MW of electricity.
The online retail and web services giant said the Cascade Advanced Energy Facility will be constructed in three phases, each with four of X-energy’s 80-MW, high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs).
Amazon said it expects construction to start “by the end of this decade,” with hopes of generating electricity sometime “in the 2030s”.
The facility, built as part of a partnership between Amazon and Energy Northwest, will supply the utility with power and augment the single-unit Columbia nuclear power station, the Pacific Northwest’s only existing commercial nuclear facility.
As part of the deal, Amazon will finance the construction of the project and the power will flow to Energy Northwest – which in turn supplies power for Amazon’s nearby data centres.
The SMRs will be of the Xe-100 design, an HTGR developed by Maryland-based X-energy.
Each Xe-100 module can provide 80 MW of full-time electricity. Energy Northwest and X-energy have engaged extensively on plans for an Xe-100 facility since 2020.
Under an agreement with Energy Northwest announced in October 2024, Amazon said it will have the right to purchase electricity from the first project of four modules.
Energy Northwest had the option to further build out the site by adding up to eight additional modules resulting in a total project generating capacity of up to 960 MWs.
“This additional power will be available to Amazon and northwest utilities to power homes and businesses,” Energy Northwest said.
X-energy says its reactor is road-shippable with accelerated construction timelines and predictable and manageable construction costs, and is well-suited to meet the requirements of energy-intensive data centres.
According to Amazon, the facility will have a significantly smaller footprint than traditional nuclear plants. The project will create over 1,000 construction jobs and over 100 permanent positions.
An initial Xe-100 plant is being planned for chemical company Dow Inc’s UCC Seadrift Operations site on the Texas Gulf Coast. This plant could be the first SMR deployed to serve an industrial site in the US.
In August, Amazon, X-energy, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power and Doosan Enerbility have signed an agreement to accelerate the deployment of Xe-100 advanced nuclear reactors in the US to meet increasing power demand from data centres, advanced manufacturing and electrification.
Amazon is one of a growing number of big tech companies, including Microsoft, Google and Meta, choosing nuclear energy as a possible method of generating reliable, low-carbon energy for data centres and artificial intelligence.
A rendering of a classroom simulator for operators of the Xe-100 nuclear power plant. Courtesy X-energy.