NuScale Power Stock Slumps Nearly 20% to Start 2026

NuScale Power (NYSE: SMR), a developer of small modular reactors (SMRs) for nuclear power plants, has seen its stock decline nearly 20% year to date. It's also trading almost 80% below its record high of $53.43 from last October. Let's see why NuScale's stock fizzled out.

What does NuScale Power do?

NuScale's SMRs can fit in vessels that are only 65 feet high and nine feet wide, and they're prefabricated, modular, and assembled on site to reduce the costs of building a nuclear power plant. It's the only SMR maker that's earned Standard Design Approvals (SDAs) from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which approved its 77 MWe SMR design last year.

NuScale originally planned to deploy six of its 77 MWe SMRs to build a 462 MWe nuclear plant in Idaho, but it scrapped that ambitious project amid skyrocketing costs in 2023. Today, NuScale is working as a subcontractor to Fluor (NYSE: FLR) to build a similar 462 MWe plant for Romania's RoPower, and it generates most of its revenue from front-end engineering and design (FEED) studies for that project. That project recently received its final investment decision (FID), but it doesn't expect to deploy the first reactors until the early 2030s.

NuScale will also return to the U.S. with a new agreement to deploy up to six gigawatts of SMR capacity across seven states for the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). However, those reactors won't come online until 2032. So, until NuScale actually deploys its first SMRs, it will generate most of its revenue from FEED studies, additional licensing deals, and converting its memorandums of understanding (MOUs) into binding, revenue-generating contracts.

What challenges does NuScale face?

From 2025 to 2028, analysts expect NuScale's revenue to surge from $31.5 million to $286.8 million as it gradually narrows its net losses. That growth should be driven by the rapid expansion of the power-hungry cloud, AI, and data center markets. Yet with a market cap of $3.75 billion, NuScale already trades at 13 times its projected 2028 revenue.

NuScale might deserve that premium valuation today if it successfully deploys its first reactors in the early 2030s. Still, the collapse of its Idaho project and other delays suggest that many things could go wrong over the next few years. As the intensifying military conflicts across the Middle East, inflation, and other macro headwinds rattle the markets, many investors are rotating away from speculative stocks like NuScale and toward more conservative investments. That pressure could persist for the foreseeable future, weighing down NuScale's volatile stock.

Leo Sun has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends NuScale Power. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.