Small Modular Reactor (SMR)

Imagine the difference between constructing one enormous custom bridge, engineered and built entirely on site over many years, versus manufacturing standardised bridge sections in a factory and assembling them at the destination in a fraction of the time. Small Modular Reactors bring almost exactly this factory-built logic to nuclear power.

A conventional nuclear reactor is typically built at over 1,000 megawatts of capacity, constructed almost entirely on site over many years, with enormous upfront capital commitment and correspondingly enormous project risk if construction runs late or over budget, a pattern that has plagued large reactor projects worldwide. An SMR, by contrast, is designed at a much smaller scale, generally under 300 megawatts, with a significant share of components manufactured in a factory and shipped to site for assembly, aiming for faster construction, more predictable costs, and the ability to add capacity incrementally rather than in one enormous single commitment.

This modularity matters enormously for exactly the kind of new entrant the SHANTI Act is trying to attract. A large industrial company or state utility can realistically finance and build one or two SMR units to power a specific facility or region, in a way that committing to a full-scale, multi-year conventional reactor project simply is not practical for most private balance sheets.

India's Nuclear Energy Mission, announced in the 2025-26 Budget alongside the broader SHANTI Act reforms, specifically prioritises SMR development and deployment, treating smaller, faster-to-build reactors as the more realistic near-term path to meaningfully expanding nuclear capacity, rather than relying solely on large conventional plants that can take a decade or more from approval to first power.

Whenever an Indian industrial group or state power utility is reported exploring nuclear power for the first time following the SHANTI Act, there is a good chance the actual project under discussion is an SMR rather than a full-scale conventional reactor, precisely because SMRs are the entry point the new private-sector-friendly nuclear regime was specifically designed to make achievable.