AEP, Amazon, and X-energy explore 960 MW nuclear plant in Indiana
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American Electric Power (AEP), Amazon, and X-energy are exploring a 960 MW advanced nuclear plant on a former coal plant site in Sullivan County, Indiana, with Amazon offering to cover the project’s costs through a long-term power contract.
The companies announced the plan on Oct. 19. AEP has signed a joint development agreement with X-energy to study the project’s feasibility, and Amazon will provide milestone-based development funding. The initial design calls for 12 of X-energy’s Xe-100 small modular reactors (SMRs), each producing 80 MW, arranged in groups of 4.
AEP is evaluating the former Breed Generating Station, a coal plant once run by its Indiana utility, Indiana Michigan Power.
If the plant is built and enters commercial operation, Amazon plans to buy its power under a long-term contract that would cover the facility’s costs and operations for the length of the agreement.
That cost structure is the most important part of the announcement.
Amazon is offering to carry the cost risk
New nuclear projects in the US have a history of cost overruns, and utilities have been wary of passing that risk to their customers. The AEP agreements are designed to keep it away from them.
AEP says the project is intended to avoid raising costs for Indiana Michigan Power customers. Chief executive Bill Fehrman said the agreements “will provide all necessary capital protections and financial safeguards” for any potential nuclear project.
Amazon described its role in similar terms. Josh Weissman, Amazon’s vice president of data center infrastructure capacity delivery, said the companies plan to “pay our full costs without passing them to others.”
That commitment speaks to a question regulators and customers are asking more often: who pays for the power that data centers need?
In Indiana, the scale of that question is clear. Under large-load interconnection rules approved by state regulators in 2025, Indiana Michigan Power said it expects peak load in the state to more than double, from 2,800 MW to more than 7,000 MW by 2030, driven by large new customers.
The Xe-100 brings a different reactor design to the grid
The Xe-100 is a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor. It uses helium as its coolant and runs on TRISO fuel, in which uranium is sealed inside small ceramic-coated particles designed to hold in radioactive material at very high temperatures.
X-energy says the design’s safety case allows for a compact site footprint. That makes it a fit for brownfield locations such as retired coal plants, which often come with existing grid connections and land already zoned for power generation.
Indiana is X-energy’s third announced US Xe-100 project. Its first, with Dow on the Texas Gulf Coast, would supply electricity and industrial steam and is in the final phases of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s construction permit review. A second Amazon-backed project, with Energy Northwest, is planned in Washington state.
At 12 units, the Indiana plant would be 3 times the size of the 4-unit Dow project.
Amazon and X-energy have set a goal of bringing more than 5 GW of new nuclear capacity to the US grid by 2039. X-energy puts its commercial pipeline at about 11.5 GW worldwide.
Amazon’s nuclear spending is not limited to new reactors. In late September, it signed a 20-year, 690 MW power purchase agreement with Constellation Energy tied to expanding and upgrading the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant in Maryland.
The plan is still at the feasibility stage
The announcement is a development agreement, not a construction decision.
A final investment decision would have to come first, followed by construction and commercial operation. The companies have not given a construction schedule, an in-service date, or a cost estimate, and no SMR has yet entered commercial operation in the US.
Indiana has spent the past 2 years preparing for projects like this one. Since 2025, the state has introduced investment and manufacturing tax credits for nuclear and the Advanced Nuclear Ready Communities Program, which recognizes communities that have taken steps to host advanced nuclear development. Sullivan County recently joined the program.
If built, AEP expects the plant to create jobs, expand the local tax base, and operate for more than 60 years.
Whether it gets that far depends on questions none of the 3 companies has answered yet: what the plant will cost, how long licensing will take, and whether the first Xe-100 units at other sites prove the design on schedule.
Source:
AEP via PR Newswire
