Appalachian Power Co. is asking state regulators for permission to charge customers for costs associated with developing a site for a potential small modular nuclear reactor at the company’s Joshua Falls property in Campbell County.
If the request is approved, the average residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per month would see a monthly bill increase of $1.98, or about 2%, from October 2027 through September 2028.
That would enable the power company to recover $20.6 million in the first of the six years that it anticipates financing the project. The company said in its application that it anticipates site development will cost approximately $100 million; a state law passed in 2024 caps the amount that the utility could recover from customers at $125 million total.
APCo said in a statement to Cardinal News that its application to the State Corporation Commission “represents the next step in responsibly advancing early development work at our Joshua Falls site.”
“These activities, including site studies and permitting efforts, are designed to reduce risk and inform future decisions while remaining subject to SCC oversight and consistent with state law,” APCo said.
APCo said it also is seeking federal funding from the U.S. Department of Energy to reduce how much customers will pay.
Small modular reactors, or SMRs, are designed to provide 24/7 power while being smaller than traditional nuclear reactors — for example, rated at 300 megawatts of power generation compared to around 1,000 for a larger reactor such as those at Dominion Energy’s North Anna nuclear plant.
[Disclosure: Dominion is one of our donors, but donors have no say in news decisions; see our policy.]
The cost recovery for which APCo seeks permission is associated not with actually building the SMR but rather with developing the Joshua Falls site, off the James River a few miles outside Lynchburg, to potentially build a reactor there.
Site development work includes analyzing the property for its suitability for an SMR, applying for permitting and licensing from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, conducting public outreach, including meeting with landowners, local governments and elected officials, and holding an open house informational session last year in Lynchburg.
APCo first announced its intent to explore developing an SMR at Joshua Falls in November 2024. If the company receives all necessary permitting and approvals, the SMR likely would not come online until the mid- to late 2030s, the company has said.
It’s possible that APCo’s 540,000 customers end up paying site development costs for an SMR that is never built, a point raised by staff of the State Corporation Commission during a separate but related regulatory proceeding last year.
Joshua Falls is the location of a popular boat ramp on the James River, and a company official said in written testimony to the commission that the ramp’s future was among the “earliest and most prominent local concerns” associated with the project. APCo has created a website, JFBoatRamp.com, specifically for updates about the ramp.
Across the river in Amherst County, a Charlotte, North Carolina-based company called Geenex Power is proposing to develop an SMR on a cattle farm property. That project was announced in October, and Geenex has said it chose the location in part because of its proximity to APCo’s Joshua Falls electric substation and related grid infrastructure, which Geenex said could handle the SMR’s power output.
