A Texas plant puts dates on the gas-first, nuclear-later data center template

Blue Energy and GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy have signed an agreement to advance engineering design, licensing and safety analysis for a 2.5GW gas-plus-nuclear plant in Victoria, Texas, intended to power a nearby data center ^[1][2]. The sequencing is the news: roughly 1GW from two GE Vernova 7HA.02 gas turbines in 2030, then up to 1.5GW from as many as five BWRX-300 small modular reactors starting in 2032 ^[3][5][6].

That structure is becoming the standard answer to a specific procurement problem. A hyperscale campus needs firm power on a construction schedule measured in months, and the reactors that developers want to point to in their disclosures are not available on that schedule. So the gas turbines carry the load and the nuclear arrives later, on the same site, sold as one integrated deal. Eric Gray, CEO of GE Vernova's Power segment, described the pairing as "establishing a blueprint for deploying reliable baseload power at the scale and speed customers need" ^[11].

The dates deserve scrutiny rather than applause. Everything is contingent on a final investment decision expected sometime in 2027 ^[4], which is three years before the gas turbines are supposed to deliver and five years before the first reactor ^[18]. The BWRX-300 is a 300MW boiling water reactor, so the advertised 1.5GW nuclear tranche requires all five units to be built, not one demonstration ^[7][17]. The first BWRX-300 anywhere is under construction at Ontario Power Generation's Darlington site in Canada, targeted for completion by the end of the decade ^[8], which means Victoria's 2032 start assumes a reference plant that has not yet operated.

There is already slippage on the record. When Blue Energy signed with Crusoe in October for the 1,600-acre campus at the Port of Victoria, it said power could arrive as early as 2028 ^[12][13]. The current plan puts first gas at 2030, two years later, and Blue Energy did not disclose further detail on the data center development timeline ^[15][13]. The nuclear step follows two years after that ^[15].

Blue Energy's pitch is that this is a manufacturing problem, not a construction problem. The company is not a reactor manufacturer; it designs modular nuclear plants that are built off-site at shipyards and transported in ^[9]. CEO Jake Jurewicz said the approach "slashes costs and time to power and finally makes nuclear a financeable, repeatable product" ^[10]. Financeable is the operative word, and the 2027 investment decision is where that claim gets tested.

For Crusoe, the plant is one of two nuclear bets. The Blue Energy deal was its first with a nuclear power company, and it has since partnered with Aalo Atomics on what could be the first SMR-powered data center, at Idaho National Laboratory in 2027, as a proof-of-concept project ^[14].

Watch the 2027 investment decision, and whether the gas date holds at 2030 after having already moved from 2028 ^[4][13][15]. Watch Darlington's completion, because Victoria's reactor schedule is downstream of it ^[8]. And watch whether the data center customer stays undisclosed as the licensing work progresses ^[5][12].