Holtec begins loading fuel into the Palisades reactor

Holtec Nuclear Corporation has begun loading nuclear fuel into the reactor vessel at its Palisades plant in Covert Township, Michigan, the company announced on August 31, 2026. The core takes 204 fuel assemblies, a mix of new fuel and partially used assemblies from the plant's most recent operating cycles, and is designed, per the release, to support Palisades' 805-megawatt electric output. Holtec says the milestone advances Palisades toward becoming the first commercial US nuclear plant to return to service after entering decommissioning.

Plant staff started the load on the morning of Sunday, August 30, according to the American Nuclear Society's Nuclear Newswire, which describes the single unit as 777 MWe; neither Holtec's 805 MW nor Nuclear Newswire's 777 MWe is labeled gross or net. Loading fuel places Palisades in Mode 6, the refueling stage under the plant's technical specifications.

The regulatory authority for that step dates from 2025: by letter dated July 24, 2025, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told Holtec it had issued Amendment No. 276 to the plant's renewed operating license "to reflect the reauthorization of power operations," approving it concurrently with the license transfer, an exemption request, and three further license amendment requests tied to resuming operations. Nuclear Newswire reported on July 28, 2025 that the plant had been formally transitioned from decommissioning status to holding an operating license, the first such transition for a US nuclear plant. Once the core is full, the release says, the plant moves through a series of required testing, inspections, and startup activities as systems are declared fit for operation. The release sets no date for commercial operation; Nuclear Newswire notes that Holtec founder and CEO Kris Singh, in an interview earlier in the summer of 2026, said he expects Palisades to restart in 2026, ahead of its contract to supply power by March 2027.

The core load caps more than two years of refurbishment. Work Holtec lists in the release includes reinforcement of tubes in the plant's two steam generators, removal of accumulated corrosive species from the steam generation space, replacement of the control rod drive mechanism nozzles, chemical decontamination and passivation of the primary system, and reactor vessel inspections. World Nuclear News reported in April 2026 that the passivation campaign brought the primary system to operating temperature and pressure for the first time since the plant shut down.

Palisades, a single-unit pressurized water reactor, stopped operating in May 2022 and was defueled that June, though its operating license runs to March 2031, per World Nuclear News. In late 2023, Holtec began seeking the approvals needed to return the plant to operational status for the remainder of the license term.

The money behind the reversal is public and long-term. The release credits financial support from the State of Michigan, a loan from the US Department of Energy, and long-term power purchase agreements with Wolverine Power Cooperative and Hoosier Energy. The DOE backing is a loan guarantee of up to $1.52 billion; the department announced its fifth disbursement under it, $83.2 million, on August 7, 2025, describing Palisades as "America's first restart of a commercial nuclear reactor in decommissioning."

Holtec's plans for the site run past the restart: the release's company description says Holtec currently expects the first two units of its SMR-300 small modular reactor to be deployed at the company-owned Palisades site. The nearer-term sequence is the one the release names, finishing the core load and testing plant systems. The corporate names track the reversal: Holtec Decommissioning International and Holtec Palisades took the license from Entergy to take the plant apart, per World Nuclear News; the NRC's July 24, 2025 letter names Palisades Energy, LLC as the licensed operator; and it is Holtec Nuclear Corporation's release that now reports fuel going into the reactor vessel. Chief Nuclear Officer Fadi Diya said in the release that the team remains focused on "disciplined execution of the remaining work and returning Palisades to safe and reliable operation."