| Datacentre power
B&W and Denham partner on coal plant conversion for data centre power
Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises, Inc. has signed a strategic partnership agreement with Denham Capital’s Sustainable Infrastructure arm to jointly pursue opportunities to generate power to support the increased demand from data centres in the USA and Europe. This will include technologies for coal power generation, conversion of coal plants to natural gas and back-end environmental technology.
Through the partnership, “substantial investments” will be made to convert coal-fired power plants to natural gas, a “crucial bridge for the clean energy transition,” says B&W, noting that “natural gas offers cost-effective and rapid deployment to support the development of data centres until renewables can match the pace of electricity demand growth.” Justin DeAngelis, Global Head of Sustainable
Infrastructure at Denham Capital, commented: “Data centres have created an unprecedented and immediate demand for power generation, the likes of which we have not seen in nearly two decades. Time-to-power is a key focal point for data centre developers and hyperscalers, and this partnership is one differentiated tool we are looking to utilise to meet market needs.”
Going for the nuclear option at Cottam
Holtec International, EDF UK and Tritax Management plan to work together to develop Holtec’s SMR-300 small modular reactor technology for deployment at the former Cottam coal-fired power station in Nottinghamshire, UK to provide power to new, advanced data centres planned for the site. A memorandum of understanding to that effect has been signed by Holtec, EDF UK and their real estate partner Tritax Management.
The project could transform one of the UK’s historic “Megawatt Valley” sites into a hub for clean energy and new investment opportunities, whilst demonstrating the benefits of US–UK collaboration in advanced nuclear technologies and data centre development, the developers say. The 900 acre Cottam site is said to offer an unparalleled location, with grid connections and critical infrastructure that will significantly reduce development costs and timelines. The project will also enable foreign direct investment into the UK, including into nuclear fuel fabrication and
services by Framatome and turbine manufacture by Arabelle Solutions.
The UK programme will benefit directly from Holtec’s planned SMR-300 deployment at Palisades, Michigan. As a second-of-a-kind deployment, it is hoped that the UK project will benefit from lessons learned, reducing risk and speeding the project up.
Feasibility studies and early-stage investment discussions are now underway, with Holtec International and EDF UK engaged with relevant parties within the UK and US governments, including Great British Energy – Nuclear and The National Wealth Fund.
The 1 GW data centre project planned for Cottam is targeted to come online by the end of the decade and forms part of the Trent Valley Supercluster, submitted as an AI Growth Zone to the UK government. The data centre project will initially have a significant power contribution from renewable generation, with the SMR element hoping to become operational in the 2030s.
Also aiming to deploy SMRs for data centre power is a new collaboration between Google, Kairos Power and TVA. Kairos describes itself as leveraging “TRISO fuel in pebble form combined with a low-pressure fluoride salt coolant.” Through a new power purchase agreement between Kairos Power and TVA, Kairos Power’s planned Hermes 2 plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, will provide power to the TVA grid, which serves Google data centres in Tennessee and Alabama. Hermes 2 is a power producing demo plant to be built alongside Hermes 1 a low power demo unit currently under construction.
TVA is the first US utility to sign a PPA to buy electricity generated by a GEN IV reactor, and Hermes 2 is the first deployment under the Kairos Power deal with Google that aims to enable 500 MW of advanced nuclear capacity to come online by 2035 in support of Google’s load growth. The Hermes 2 facility is scheduled to enter operation in 2030.
Demolition of Cottam cooling towers, August 2025 (photo: EDF)
Huge growth in power needed for AI model training
A new report from EPRI and Epoch AI, Scaling intelligence: the exponential growth of AI’s power needs, forecasts that training a leading large scale AI model could, by 2030, require more than 4 GW. Despite rapid efficiency gains, the power demands of training a leading model have more than doubled every year for the past decade, according to the report. AI companies have
found that increasing model size and complexity provides better performance, which in turn drives the need for additional compute and electrical power.
The report finds that the AI industry will likely continue to scale up its models in the coming years, despite recent computational efficiency breakthroughs.
Total AI power capacity in the USA is estimated at around 5 GW today and could reach more than 50 GW by 2030 — matching total global demand from data centres today and comprising a rapidly growing share of overall data centre power demands. “This report offers a rigorous, data-driven look at these trends and where they’re headed,” said Jaime Sevilla, director of Epoch AI.
www.modernpowersystems.com | October 2025 | 33
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