The U.S. Department of Energy awarded $800 million to the Tennessee Valley Authority and Holtec Government Services to support construction of what may be the country’s first advanced small modular reactors.

The company that plans to restart the Palisades nuclear facility in Michigan is pushing to build four 300-MW small modular reactors on the site of the decommissioned Oyster Creek Generating Station in New Jersey.

The planned restart of Palisades Nuclear Plant survived a challenge from anti-nuclear organizations, with a panel of judges of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission deeming their arguments inadmissible.

FERC has given the Palisades Nuclear Plant special permission to exceed MISO’s 36-month limit on generator suspensions as owner Holtec International works through the plant’s reopening.

Anti-nuclear groups have united in an attempt to stop Michigan’s Palisades Nuclear Generating Station from being brought back to life.

No nuclear power plant in the nation has restarted operations after shutting down, and Holtec International is detailing how it expects to accomplish the feat at the mothballed Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in a little more than a year.

Michigan’s 800-MW Palisades nuclear power plant could become the first nuclear plant in the U.S. to be restarted, helped by a $1.52 billion loan from DOE’s Loan Programs Office.