Nuclear Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) Market 2026-2046: Technologies, Players, Benchmarking, Forecasts

In a time of increasing energy uncertainty, approaching net-zero targets, and growing demand for reliable electricity from data centers, renewed interest in nuclear energy has emerged, particularly for SMRs. Small modular reactors, also known as SMRs, use smaller reactor units with factory-built components to potentially offer advantages in performance, safety, and finance over traditional large nuclear power plants.

 

This report provides a comprehensive account of the current state of the SMR market, highlighting the projects that are most promising to be online within the next 5 years, supported by 22 company profiles of key players, and comparing 10 different reactor technologies in a data-driven benchmarking scheme. The report also provides a 20-year outlook for the growth of the industry, which could reach 1970 TWh of yearly electricity production by 2046, with yearly forecasts split by region and reactor type.

 

 

SMRs are small nuclear fission reactors which are partially factory-built and typically have a power output below 300 megawatts electric (MWe). They aim to make nuclear projects cheaper, enhance their safety, and open pathways to new business models.

 

Economies of scale are transferred from the size of the individual plant (as in a conventional large nuclear project), to manufacturing higher volumes of individual SMRs. This transition should help in avoiding the budget and time overrun issues that plague the nuclear industry today, while also making it more approachable for private capital and startups to engage with nuclear energy.

 

In most of Europe and North America, growth in nuclear power capacity has stagnated over the last two decades, with some countries even implementing phaseout policies in the wake of the Fukushima disaster. However, the rapid expansion of AI data centers, coupled with renewed concerns around energy security and meeting net-zero targets, has driven renewed interest into nuclear energy.

 

Russia and China have secured early success in the SMR market, with commercial units already online and producing power and more projects set to come online soon. However, government initiatives and a new surge of private investment into nuclear startups have pushed SMRs up the agenda in many countries. The US in particular seeks to reclaim its role as a hub for nuclear energy innovation and capability. In this report we perform case studies of some of the most prominent SMR startups, such as Oklo, NuScale, Kairos Power and X-Energy, which with the support of government and tech hyperscaler investment are competing to get SMR power deployed in North America.

 

 

SMRs are also enabling new interest in a range of reactor types beyond those currently in commercial use today. SMR designs in the industry can be split into two categories: "evolutionary" Gen III+ designs which iterate on the successes of widely deployed nuclear reactor types active today, and "revolutionary" Gen IV designs which use different fuel formats and thermodynamic cycles to offer improvements in performance, new capabilities, or enhanced passive safety features.

 

High-temperature gas reactors (HTGRs), liquid metal fast reactors (LMFRs), and molten salt reactors (MSRs) are some of the Gen IV reactor designs closest to, or already deployed, on the market. One advantage that all three of these reactors have in common is a much higher operating temperature than traditional light water reactors, which typically operate at around 250-300°C, whereas HTGRs, LMFRs, and MSRs can reach 500-900°C depending on the design specifics. A higher operating temperature not only improves thermal efficiency but also opens avenues to industrial processes that can directly make use of high-temperature process heat such as steelmaking or hydrogen production. The growth of the SMR market could therefore be driven further by growing demand for low-carbon hydrogen sources.

 

Despite these advantages, there is still a strong case for SMRs based on the more "evolutionary" Gen III+ designs such as pressurized water reactors (PWRs) or boiling water reactors (BWRs). By amassing a database of over 100 SMR projects active globally, IDTechEx has evaluated 10 different reactor technologies in a quantitative benchmarking scheme, comparing different reactor types by their most important economic and technical metrics. This database is also leveraged throughout the report to illustrate the global distribution of reactor projects by country, to analyze the progress of different technologies, and to examine the importance of different fuel types.

 

Between a growing market for nuclear in Asia, changing policies in Europe, renewed investments in North America, and potential future markets in Africa and South America, the global market landscape for SMRs is complex but rife with opportunity. This report breaks down trends for SMRs deployed across 5 different regions with granular forecasting for the volume, capacity, and construction revenues generated by SMR deployment - which is anticipated to reach US$53.8B in 2036 and almost US$300B by 2046. Forecasting is also broken down by reactor type, also with volume, electrical capacity, and revenues generated across LWRs, HTGRs, LMFRs, and MSRs.

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