New York, July 13, 2026, 18:07 EDT
NuScale Power NYSE:SMR dropped 7.6% to $8.35 Monday, hitting a 52-week low and finishing 85.5% below its October high when U.S. cash markets closed. The latest slide is drawing attention to one odd part of its Tennessee Valley Authority deal: under the deal’s current terms, a firm commitment for all 72 planned reactor modules would mean ENTRA1 Energy gets a second payment, around $1.18 billion.
This is key because management has said a TVA PPA might get done this year. A power purchase agreement is a contract where a buyer commits to buying electricity for the long term. In its annual filing, NuScale says hitting the PPA milestone would cost about $16 million per NuScale Power Module, even if ENTRA1 hasn’t signed a supply deal that generates revenue for NuScale. The equipment-manufacturing agreement with the company is only required at the third payment stage.
The ENTRA1 contract lays out NuScale’s module payments in three phases. NuScale has already booked $507.4 million in costs since ENTRA1’s non-binding TVA framework for 72 modules. If the 15%-35%-50% split holds, the estimated breakdown is as follows:
| Trigger | Share of total contribution | Estimated amount for 72 modules | Position at March 31 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Project framework, not binding | 15% | $507.4 million | Already spent and out the door |
| Firm PPA or power sales contract | 35% | $1.18 billion | Not yet booked |
| Contract to build the gear | 50% | $1.69 billion | Not yet booked |
| Total | 100% | $3.38 billion | About $2.88 billion could still go out |
The estimates are based on the later deals keeping all 72 modules and use the initial payment to calculate total contribution. NuScale said as of March 31, it hadn’t recorded a liability tied to the two later phases.
The projected $1.18 billion second payment lines up with the just over $1.2 billion cash Chief Financial Officer Ramsey Hamady said NuScale had in early May. NuScale brought in just $565,000 of revenue for the first quarter and had a net loss of $46.7 million. The company burned through $314.7 million in cash, most of it due to a $259.9 million payout to ENTRA1. That initial $507.4 million payment was about 898 times NuScale’s revenue for the quarter and used up close to half the liquidity the company had as of March.
Monday’s drop also came as investors moved out of early-stage nuclear names in a risk-off trade. The S&P 500 dropped 0.8% and the Nasdaq Composite slid 1.6% after rising U.S.-Iran tensions sent oil prices higher and tech stocks down. Oklo NYSE:OKLO and Nano Nuclear Energy NASDAQ:NNE fell too, but NuScale posted the steepest slide.
| Company | Monday close | Daily move | Approximate market value |
|---|---|---|---|
| NuScale Power | $8.35 | fell 7.4% | $2.67 billion |
| Oklo | $45.81 | down 6.1% | $7.80 billion |
| Nano Nuclear Energy | $18.02 | lost 4.5% | $0.93 billion |
NuScale has a regulatory edge on its peers for now. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission cleared its revised 77-megawatt small modular reactor in May 2025. These SMRs are set up to be manufactured in modules, not just as one big plant. Still, in its most recent annual report, NuScale said it hadn’t signed any binding contract to supply modules and it flagged that production or design holdups could delay first delivery until 2031 or even later.
NuScale CEO John Hopkins told the May earnings call the company was “highly encouraged by the progress” at ENTRA1 and TVA but called the broader commercialization effort “complicated” and slow. Hamady said they hope to land a TVA PPA later this year and noted about $8 million in revenue from early Romanian project work across 2024 and 2025 as an example of what kind of services revenue might come in before any equipment order. Investing.com
The gap in funding is clear for investors. Early services only run to millions, but the possible PPA-related payment is over $1 billion. NuScale’s contract allows credits for future ENTRA1 deals if a project falls through, but its filing says that money could be lost if no new projects come along.
The $2.88 billion is just an exposure estimate, not a forecast for immediate outflow. A final TVA deal might call for fewer than 72 modules, and payments would depend on contract caps and timing. If NuScale moves quickly from the PPA to ordering equipment, that last step could tie big revenue to the last piece. But if the second-stage bill shows up first, that could eat up liquidity or force more share sales. At the end of March, NuScale still had approval to sell up to $962.1 million more in its open-market program.
NuScale’s next major update lands August 5, when it posts Q2 results after the bell. Investors want details on cash, fresh share sales, any ENTRA1-related liability, and especially whether a TVA deal would lay out the number of modules needed to trigger payment. For now, the stock plunge shows traders are treating the next commercial win as both a test of the tech and a likely capital raise.
