X-energy, AEP and Amazon to Study 960 MW SMR Plant at Retired Indiana Coal Site
American Electric Power and X-energy signed a joint development agreement on Monday to study a 12-unit, 960 MW small modular reactor plant on the site of AEP’s retired Breed Generating Station in Indiana, with Amazon funding the feasibility work.
American Electric Power and X-energy said Monday they have signed a joint development agreement to study building a 960-megawatt small modular reactor plant on the site of AEP’s retired Breed Generating Station in Sullivan County, Indiana. Amazon will provide project development funding for the feasibility work, making the proposal the second commercial deployment under a partnership between Amazon and X-energy that aims to add more than 5 gigawatts of new nuclear capacity to the U.S. grid by 2039.
A coal plant’s second life
The project would rise on a brownfield site: the retired Breed Generating Station, a coal-fired plant that sits on land AEP already owns and operates through its Indiana utility. Reusing a retired coal site lets the companies tap existing land rights, grid connections and transmission infrastructure rather than starting from scratch, a pattern utilities across the U.S. Midwest have increasingly leaned on as they look to replace retired coal capacity with new generation. Indiana Governor Mike Braun welcomed the move, framing it as a vote of confidence from AEP’s Indiana utility, Amazon and X-energy in the state’s ability to host advanced nuclear technology.
Twelve small reactors, one 960 MW plant
The design calls for 12 units of X-energy’s Xe-100, an 80-megawatt-electric high-temperature gas-cooled reactor that uses helium as a coolant and is fueled by TRISO — tri-structural isotropic — particle fuel, in place of conventional enriched-uranium fuel rods. Twelve 80 MWe units would be grouped into three sets of four, each set totaling 320 MW, for a combined 960 MW of capacity. The modular, factory-built approach is central to X-energy’s pitch: smaller reactors that can be manufactured in series and added incrementally, rather than a single large reactor built on site over a decade or more.
Amazon’s financing role
Amazon’s contribution is described as project development funding tied to the study’s progress, rather than a commitment to build or to buy power from the plant. Josh Weissman, Amazon’s vice president of data center infrastructure capacity delivery, said the structure is designed to let Amazon cover its own share of the project’s costs directly rather than having them passed on to other electricity customers — a financing approach the company has also used in its first deal with X-energy. That earlier project, Energy Northwest’s Cascade Advanced Energy Facility in Washington state, was the first commercial deployment under the Amazon-X-energy collaboration; the Indiana proposal would be the second.
Part of a fast-growing reactor pipeline
X-energy says it now has a commercial pipeline of roughly 11.5 GW of Xe-100 projects, and that the Indiana proposal is its third announced commercial project in the United States and fourth worldwide. The company’s first Xe-100 deployment is a four-unit plant for chemicals maker Dow at Dow’s Seadrift, Texas site, which is providing both electricity and high-temperature industrial steam and whose construction permit application is in the final stages of U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission review — the furthest along of X-energy’s projects to date. AEP, which has also agreed this month to buy up to 1.6 GW of gas-fired linear generators from Mainspring in a deal worth up to $4 billion, has been moving on multiple fronts to secure fast-deployable power as data center demand strains its service territories; PJM, ERCOT and SPP, the grid operators covering much of AEP’s footprint, all set new summer peak-demand records in 2026, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data.
Still a feasibility study, not a done deal
AEP and X-energy were careful to frame Monday’s announcement as the start of a feasibility study rather than a construction commitment. No final investment decision has been made, no construction has been approved, and the companies have not filed a construction permit application with the NRC for the Indiana site. AEP Chairman, President and chief executive Bill Fehrman said advanced nuclear technology “has the potential to provide dependable power for over half a century,” while X-energy chief executive J. Clay Sell pointed to AEP’s roughly 50 years of nuclear operating experience as a reason for the partnership. Both companies cautioned in the announcement that the feasibility work could conclude without the project moving forward, and that further agreements covering financing, ownership and power sales would still need to be negotiated and signed.
Sources
- X-energy, Amazon, American Electric Power Partner to Bring SMR Project to Indiana — X-energy investor news release, Oct. 19, 2026 (project scope, capacity, quotes, pipeline figures)
- POWER Magazine, “AEP, X-energy Eye 960-MW Nuclear Plant at Retired Indiana Coal Site, Backed by Amazon,” Oct. 19, 2026 (site and project framing)
- Benzinga, “X-Energy Expands Nuclear Pipeline With New Indiana Reactor Proposal,” Oct. 19, 2026 (market context)
Illustrative image. Photo: Christian David, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons — source
