Turkey and US Agree to Study Nine Small Modular and Next-Gen Reactor Designs

Türkiye Nuclear Energy Inc. (TÜNAŞ) and the US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) signed a nuclear cooperation agreement in New York this week, funding a technical study that will evaluate small modular reactor (SMR) designs from four American companies and fourth-generation reactor designs from five more. The deal was signed at Türkevi during President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s visit for the 81st session of the UN General Assembly.

What the study actually covers

USTDA is funding the roughly $2 million technical study, which is expected to run at least a year. It will assess the nine reactor designs on their technical characteristics, projected costs, licensing status, supply-chain readiness, and financing structures, alongside a SWOT analysis of each. That scope makes the agreement a feasibility and vendor-screening exercise rather than a construction commitment: no reactor has been selected, no site has been named, and no financing decision has been made. What it does is give Ankara a structured, US-funded comparison of American SMR and Gen-IV vendors to weigh against other options already in its pipeline.

Diversifying away from a Russia-built fleet

Turkey’s only nuclear plant under construction, Akkuyu, is a Rosatom project on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast comprising four VVER-1200 units of 1,200 MW each. The first unit has been undergoing commissioning tests, including a full dummy-fuel-loading rehearsal, ahead of a targeted start of operations by the end of 2026; once running, it is expected to supply roughly 2-2.5% of Turkey’s electricity, rising toward about 10% once all four Akkuyu units are online, expected by 2028. That concentration of Turkey’s nuclear buildout in a single Russian-built project has made supply-chain diversification a stated priority for Ankara, and the new USTDA-funded study gives Turkey a formal channel to bring US vendors into its planning alongside Rosatom.

The 2050 target this study feeds into

Turkey has set a long-range goal of operating 12 large conventional reactors plus roughly 5,000 MW of SMR capacity by 2050 — a target far beyond what Akkuyu alone can deliver. Reaching it will require additional plant sites, additional vendors and, eventually, additional financing beyond the build-operate-own model Rosatom used at Akkuyu. The TÜNAŞ-USTDA study is an early step toward that diversification: it is designed to tell Turkish planners which of the nine US designs are close enough to commercial readiness, and cost-competitive enough, to be worth pursuing for the next phase of the country’s nuclear programme.

A one-year clock before any real decision

Because the agreement funds evaluation rather than construction, the near-term outcome to watch is the study itself: which of the nine designs score well enough on licensing status and supply-chain readiness to advance toward a Turkish siting and financing process. That result is at least a year away, and any subsequent decision to actually build a US-designed SMR in Turkey would still require its own siting, licensing and financing agreements — a process Akkuyu shows can run well over a decade from signing to first power.

Sources: World Nuclear News, “US-Turkey agreement to accelerate SMR deployment,” Sept. 24, 2026, world-nuclear-news.org — agreement structure, funding and scope; Daily Sabah, “Türkiye, US sign new SMRs, nuclear cooperation deal,” Sept. 2026 — signing location and designs covered; Al-Monitor, “Turkey, US sign $2M grant deal for small nuclear reactors,” Sept. 2026 — funding figure and strategic context; Türkiye Today / Daily Sabah, Akkuyu commissioning coverage, Sept. 2026 — Akkuyu unit-1 timeline and electricity-share figures.

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Illustrative image. Photo: Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — source