Holtec’s Success in the Overseas Spent Fuel Sector Mirrors Domestic Dominance
We will remember 2025 as the year when Holtec’s SMR-300 nuclear reactor program notched pivotal breakthroughs that will accelerate its adoption and deployment around the world in this decade and beyond. A giant stride was made in building what is likely to be America’s first SMRs (named Pioneer Units 1 & 2) planned to be built at the Company’s Palisades site on Lake Michigan. This program received a critical boost from the US Department of Energy whose grant of $400 million in 2025 for the Pioneer program has been critical in developing its finance architecture.
Our SMR, LLC business unit, responsible for the licensing of the SMR-300 reactor, successfully submitted several licensing topical reports to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission culminating in the submission of the Preliminary Safety Analysis Report (PSAR) and the Limited Work Authorization (LWA) Package to construct Pioneer Units 1 & 2. Holtec is now poised to begin preparatory civil construction work at the site as soon as the Palisades Energy plant is successfully connected to the grid, which will most likely occur by the end of February. The outstanding attributes of SMR-300, such as its compactness, its PWR genre, its ability to be operated in water-challenged locales, and its high seismic tolerance, have drawn strong interest from countries far and wide, many of whom do not have an operating nuclear plant at present. We are particularly gratified by our regulatory progress in the United Kingdom expected to culminate in a successful Generic Design Assessment (GDA) Step 2 outcome in early 2026. The design adaptations for the United Kingdom will align SMR-300 to the AC frequency used in most of the world (50 Hz) facilitating its global adoption. Holtec has signed an MOU with EDF (UK) to build the first SMR-300s at the former coal-powered Cottam site in the country’s heartland. The continuing rise of new nuclear has led to a corresponding decline of our decommissioning business which booked no new contracts in 2025.
Thanks to the hard work and dedication of our Palisades restart team, our operator training center was fully accredited in 2025 giving us the ability to train nuclear plant operators to operate our SMR-300s in countries that are new to nuclear power generation. In the US, we envisage our SMR-300s to be operated by a nuclear utility with an existing fleet of nuclear units. However, we plan to maintain the capability to operate SMR-300s, where absolutely necessary, as a part of our full spectrum service strategy.
Our dry storage program, which has been the mainstay of the Company’s core business for the past 30 years, also set some notable records of its own, such as NPD’s site services business unit completing pool-to-pad operation at a US plant in record-breaking 50.5 hours and maintaining its annual track record of zero personal injury, zero lost time accidents, and industry-leading ALARA performance. “The smooth dry storage implementations across the country today reflects the Holtec Site Services team’s deep commitment to the nuclear industry. It stands in sharp contrast to the situation 30 years ago, when Holtec entered the business amid widespread uncertainty and an NRC-ordered moratorium on dry storage loadings imposed on the then industry leaders,” says EVP Joy Russell, who joined the Company in 1997.
Holtec’s innovation machine had another banner year with the introduction of the unventilated, high heat load HI-STORM for deployment in coastal sites with aggressive marine environment and the “extended HI-STORM system” for an enhanced cask storage density.
Our three domestic manufacturing plants continued to underpin America’s used fuel storage solution accounting for over 90% of America’s national output of dry storage and transport systems.
The crowning achievement of NPD’s dry storage business was the industry’s largest client-assisted turnkey contract signed with the Taiwan Power Company in the closing days of the year. In 2025, for the first time, our international dry storage bookings surpassed their domestic counterpart in new sales. Thanks to our deep client loyalty and a synergistic collaboration with the Holtec User Group (HUG), our domestic market share now stands at 74%. We delivered Holtec’s patented “detuned honeycomb” spent fuel racks to a Russian-origin (VVER) plant in 2025 and are on track to provide its PWR counterpart to a plant in Western Europe in 2026.
Among smaller business units, Nuclear Consulting International (NCI) earned its stripes as the “Owner’s engineer” by helping the Palisades restart team overcome the plethora of technical challenges that required creative technical solutions. Another emerging endeavor, Holtec Government Services (HGS), expanded its business footprint by executing several projects related to the Department of Energy and the Department of War. Its civilian sibling, Holtec Security International (HSI), also branched out beyond protection of nuclear plants signing contracts for physical and cybersecurity with industrial companies and municipal installations and further expanding into the commercial sector with advanced technologies including robotics.
Our Heat Transfer Division, in collaboration with Holtec Asia, continues to provide complex tubular heat exchangers to the industry and is poised to begin the supply of an innovative incarnation of concentrated solar energy capture systems (HI-THERM HCSP) and the long duration thermal storage system (Green Boiler). After years of development, the renewable energy generation and energy storage business is expected to open up new areas of growth for us and our partner, Holtec Asia, in 2026 and beyond.
To each of you, we thank you for your continued partnership and shared commitment to our success, and we wish you a healthy and prosperous New Year.