Belgium extends ENGIE nuclear talks again; Estonia cuts sites to three

Between November 2 and November 6, 2026, Belgium and ENGIE moved the target date for a state takeover of ENGIE's Belgian reactors a second time, Estonia cut its candidate nuclear sites from six to three, and PSEG disclosed degradation inside a Salem reactor vessel. SOO Green signed a letter of intent with ONE Nuclear to carry nuclear power into PJM, and HGP Intelligent Energy told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission it plans a topical report on its reactor controls.

Belgium and ENGIE push their nuclear deadline to December 12

The Belgian State, ENGIE and its Belgian subsidiary Electrabel have moved the target date for heads of terms on the state's potential acquisition of ENGIE's Belgian nuclear activities to December 12, 2026, ENGIE said on November 4. It is the second extension: the April 29 letter of intent aimed for October 1, and a September 30 release moved that to November 4.

The sticking point is the price. "However, significant differences remain, notably regarding the valuation of the transaction, and the parties wish to take the time needed to try to reconcile their positions," the November 4 release says. The parties call the new date "a maximum extension of one additional month"; by our count, December 12 falls 38 days after November 4.

Most of the reactors the state would buy no longer run. The letter of intent covers the full nuclear business, including all seven reactors, their personnel and their decommissioning and dismantling obligations, and suspends ongoing decommissioning and dismantling work while the talks run. Five of the seven units have already closed, World Nuclear News reports; Doel 4 and Tihange 3 are the last two operating.

Estonia narrows its nuclear plant search to three sites

Estonia will weigh three possible sites for a nuclear power plant instead of six, all in Viru-Nigula parish: Madala, Malla and Letipea, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications said on November 6. Areas in Lüganuse parish dropped out on national defence grounds. Project manager Agnes Lihtsa told ERR News that the decision rests above all on input from the Ministry of Defence.

Fewer sites do not mean a smaller map. The planning area has not shrunk and still covers eight municipalities, Lihtsa says in the ministry's release, because the grid connections, cooling water lines, access roads and other infrastructure may still cross them. Proposed route corridors are planned for presentation in early 2027, the most suitable site is to be chosen by the end of 2027, and the plan could be adopted in 2030 at the earliest. The plan covers a plant of up to 600 MW, per ERR, and the ministry names Fermi Energia as the interested party.

SOO Green and ONE Nuclear sign a letter of intent for PJM

SOO Green HVDC Link and ONE Nuclear Energy have signed a letter of intent to explore moving nuclear energy and capacity into PJM over SOO Green's planned 2,100 MW underground direct-current line, the companies announced on November 5. The 350-mile line would run from Mason City, Iowa, to Yorkville, Illinois, mostly along railway corridors; construction could begin as early as 2028, with commercial operation targeted for 2032.

For now it is exploratory. The letter sets up a framework, and any commercial arrangement remains subject to definitive agreements and to development, regulatory and financing requirements, though the letter includes "certain exclusivity provisions relating to nuclear generation development." ONE Nuclear's chief investment officer, Coen Weddepohl, says SOO Green picked the company's planned Iowa project, with "a development target of up to 1,000 MW," for its menu of supply options. ONE Nuclear describes itself as a developer of projects "powered by natural gas and advanced nuclear technologies."

Thermal shield testing is expected to stretch Salem 1's outage

PSEG has found degradation to the thermal shield inside the Salem Unit 1 reactor vessel, it said in its third-quarter 10-Q filed November 2. A visual inspection during the unit's scheduled refueling outage in October turned it up, and further testing "is expected to extend the refueling outage," per the filing. "The impact of the outage on Salem 1 will depend on the timing and results of the inspection and necessary repairs," PSEG adds. The outage followed a 491-day breaker-to-breaker run, its earnings slides note.

The same units carry PSEG's uprate plans. A November 6 investor update puts PSEG's share of the Salem capacity uprate at about 112 MW, including a thermal power increase of about 7% and secondary-side efficiency work, in service between 2027 and 2029. PSEG expects it to qualify for the incremental clean energy production credit, worth about $30/MWh for 10 years in 2025 dollars. The plant-wide size is older: PSEG's May 5 first-quarter presentation already put the uprate at "nearly 200 MW total." Salem is jointly owned with Constellation, and a Constellation spokesman has named Salem among the plants in its uprate program with Google.

HGP files an NRC letter of intent on reactor control technology

Dallas-based HGP Intelligent Energy has sent the NRC a letter of intent covering its control technology for pressurized water reactors, it said on November 6. HGP says its system adjusts power by changing how fast cooling water flows through the reactor, guided by a live, physics-based model of the plant, starting in a watch-only mode. The NRC has not reviewed or approved the technology, the release says.

HGP plans to file a detailed technical report with the NRC, and if the agency accepts it, plant owners could rely on it in their own uprate applications, per the release. HGP cites up to $9.2 billion in conditional DOE loan commitments for uprates in October, by our arithmetic the sum of the offers to Vistra and Constellation. The letter, dated October 27, is titled in the NRC's record as a letter of intent for pre-application engagement and a planned topical report on "Physics-Based Digital Twin Supervisory Control for Load Following at Operating Pressurized Water Reactors"; HGP's release pitches the same technology for uprates.