Industry briefing: developers need revenue certainty, regulatory stability and local buy‑in to build nuclear in Delaware

Robert Coward, an industry consultant, told the task force that building a new nuclear project requires a developer to assemble a complex package — licensing, financing, contracts, supply chain, workforce, community engagement and an offtaker — and that those elements drive whether lenders and partners will commit.

Coward described the developer’s role as integrating many parallel scopes: obtaining regulatory approvals (NRC licensing), lining up an owner or offtaker with a binding power purchase agreement, securing debt and equity financing, contracting an EPC (engineering-procurement-construction) firm, addressing supply‑chain readiness and workforce productivity, and mitigating schedule risk. He emphasized that spending typically scales by orders of magnitude as a project moves from site selection and permitting into construction, and that lenders often require an NRC license and evidence of an offtaker before providing project financing.

On costs, Coward noted market conversations about small modular reactor generation costs in the neighborhood of roughly $130 per megawatt‑hour for many SMR scenarios (a rough industry estimate that excludes distribution and transmission), and warned that interest‑rate changes and uncertain supply‑chain commitments can make projects unfinanceable. He said developers are looking for revenue certainty (binding PPAs or credible backstops), policy and tax stability, site suitability (ground, water, interconnection), and a credible, experienced team.

Coward and task force members discussed policy levers other states are pursuing — including procurement or backstop mechanisms to provide offtaker certainty — and the potential to use federal programs if projects align with Department of Defense or DOE initiatives. He urged the task force to consider what Delaware can offer developers to reduce uncertainty and speed decisions, such as site competitive advantages, streamlined permitting steps, or documented “confidence files” to show lenders and vendors that the state can support a project.

The task force did not vote on policy at the meeting. Coward listed several candidate questions the task force could pursue, including how Delaware might remove specific hurdles and whether the state could provide credible signals that reduce developer and lender risk.