管理層發言
Greetings, and welcome to the Terra Innovatum Global Fourth Quarter Fiscal Year 2025 Strategic Business Update Call. Operator Instructions: As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to your host, Mr. Giordano Morichi, Founding Partner, Chief Business Development Officer and Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. My name is Giordano Morichi. I'm the Founding Partner, Chief Business Development Officer and Director of Investor Relations of Terra Innovatum. Today, we'll provide a business update on Terra Innovatum, including recent progress across the SOLO™ micro-reactor program, regulatory engagement, commercialization activities, technology development milestones, including the Mersen graphite prototype and key supply chain advancements. For today's call, please note that you can follow along using the accompanying presentation, which is available for full download in the Investors section of Terra Innovatum's website at terrainnovatum.com. Before we begin, I want to briefly address timing around our 10-K filing. As announced, we anticipate filing our 10-K in the near term as we finalize reporting under new CFO leadership. Importantly, this does not impact our operations, liquidity or strategic process and progress. Today's call is focused on the substantial business momentum we are seeing across the platform. Further, I want to also address something we've seen on certain data platforms. It was brought to our attention that one of the SEC filings was reported by a major market data provider, giving the appearance that one of our funds had sold a portion of their stake in the company. This is incorrect and the data has been corrected. To be clear, our management team has not sold any of their shares. Moving on then. Today, we're very thrilled to provide an update on Terra Innovatum, including progress across the SOLO micro-reactor program, regulatory advancement, supply chain execution, commercialization activity and key technology milestones. I'm joined today on the call by Alessandro Petruzzi, Co-Founder and CEO; and Katherine Williams, our Chief Financial Officer. Please turn to Slide 2 to review cautionary statements. As you're likely aware, during the formal presentation as well as Q&A sessions, management may make some forward-looking statements about our current plans, beliefs and expectations. These statements apply to future events that are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from what is stated here today. These risks, uncertainties and other factors are provided in the earnings release as well as other documents filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These documents can also be found on sec.gov. Now if you please turn to Slide 3, I'll turn the call over to Alessandro to begin. Alessandro?
Thank you, and thank you to everyone for joining us today. I would like to provide a glossary of the key terms and terminology we use throughout the presentation including SOLO, FOAK, NOAK, LTE and various reactor types. I won't go through each of them here; this is a useful reference as we discuss our technology, regulatory path and commercialization plans. When we started Terra Innovatum, we weren't trying to improve traditional nuclear. There was a different problem we set out to solve. Power is becoming a constraint across the industry and not just among hyperscalers. There is a material and growing demand among industrial users for reliable, always-on energy that they can operate and grow. Existing solutions don't fully address that need. Large-scale nuclear is complex and slow to deploy, while intermittent renewables don't provide continuous output. So we set out to build something that does that. Terra Innovatum is creating a new category: a distributed, modular micro-reactor designed to deliver carbon-free energy directly to customers and facilities. This allows us to serve immediate demand today while maintaining a clear path to larger-scale deployments over time. Turning to Slide 6. 2025 was a year of substantial progress for Terra across all of the core areas that matter most to our success.
One moment please. Technical Difficulty. Please continue, Mr. Petruzzi.
Apologies for this disconnection. We'll start again with Slide 6. As I was saying, 2025 was a year of substantial progress for Terra across all of the core areas that matter most to our success and the advancement of our project: regulatory execution, supply chain readiness and commercial market development. Starting with regulatory and licensing, we moved from planning into structural execution. We advanced our engagement with the U.S. NRC and achieved accepted bucketing of topical reports and white papers to review and build the foundation for the next major milestones that include approval of principal design criteria, construction permit application submission and ultimately the operating license issuance. Just as importantly, we made significant progress on the industrial side of the business. We secured the end-to-end supply chain required for SOLO: from 130 initially identified suppliers we selected about 30 for contract agreements and initiated procurement activities that support both first deployment and early follow-on deployments. We also began pilot manufacturing activity to qualify suppliers and successfully produced the graphite prototype for the reactor together with Mersen, which we view as an important validation of both the design and the manufacturability of key reactor components. On the commercial side, we continue to demonstrate that market demand is growing. We ended the year with approximately $4 billion in pre-commercial commitments, while expanding positioning: SOLO is a flexible platform that can serve a broader range of industrial, infrastructure and data center applications across geographies. So when we look back at 2025, we see a year where Terra materially reduced execution risk across the business. We have advanced the regulatory path, secured the supply chain and deepened commercial traction, all of which move us closer to deployment and commercialization. Moving to Slide 7. Here, we would like to highlight the regulatory framework and outline the main U.S. NRC submissions we have completed so far. Our licensing process formally began in January 2025 with the submission of our regulatory engagement plan to the NRC. Since then, we have completed multiple docketed submissions, including principal design criteria, our quality assurance plan, safeguards and material control and accounting methodology, and other topical reports, along with several white papers addressing key elements of the SOLO-60K. We maintain continuous dialogue and engagement with NRC staff through workshops, phone calls and technical meetings. Even today, we are having a meeting with the U.S. NRC. The pre-application phase is now nearing completion as we transition to the Preliminary Safety Analysis Report (PSAR) and construction permit application readiness. It is important to note that all our submissions and meetings with the U.S. NRC are public and our progress, as well as that of our peers, can be tracked. We encourage our investors to read these reports and follow along on our path to deploy. The next Slide 8 highlights the regulatory retail wins. Regulatory nuclear has historically been conservative and constrained. What we are seeing now is a different approach. The development of 10 CFR Part 57 represents a structural shift in how micro-reactors will be licensed in the United States. For the first time, the framework is being designed specifically around systems like SOLO, a factory-built model and one that can be deployed at scale. In our view, this is a clear signal that regulators expect micro-reactors to play a meaningful role in the near-term energy future and are actively building the framework to support high-volume deployment. It was designed and built for it, not merely adapted to it. Moving to Slide 9. I would like now to focus on the supply chain. This is a major execution milestone for Terra. We have secured the end-to-end supply chain required to manufacture and deploy SOLO. That includes critical nuclear-grade components such as fuel, the pressure vessel, control systems and core structures, as well as our non-nuclear plant systems, including the turbine, heat exchange systems and support infrastructure. Importantly, these are not conceptual relationships. We have built an integrated network of qualified suppliers that can support the rigorous engineering and manufacturing standards this platform demands. Supply chain is where many advanced reactor programs encounter delays: long-lead components and procurement can delay deployment even when the technology is ready. We are working to address that risk early. By securing these inputs now, we have improved our readiness for production, reduced potential equipment bottlenecks and strengthened our ability to move as regulatory milestones are achieved. That fits directly with our broader execution model: licensing, manufacturing and supply chain development are all advancing in parallel. The takeaway is simple. Today, we are not just designing SOLO; we have moved far beyond the early-stage concept. We are preparing to build and position SOLO for deployment to demonstrate what this solution can do. In this industry, supply chain is where timelines break and we have addressed that risk early. Now we are able to build thanks to our supply chain partners, as outlined on Slide 10. We have established strategic alignments with leading partners across fuel, components, manufacturing and deployment, including Mersen, Ameresco and a Fortune 100 energy company, among others. These partners provide nuclear-grade systems, fuel, instrumentation and control, and deployment capability that are critical to SOLO execution and scale-up. Moving to Slide 11. We now turn to an exciting operational update. We are pleased to announce an important manufacturing milestone achieved recently with Mersen. We have successfully produced a graphite reactor core engineering prototype for SOLO, which marks another step forward in our readiness for first deployment. This is significant because it reflects not just progress on a component; it shows we are translating supply chain preparation into actual manufacturing execution, and that is exactly the kind of progress we want investors to see as we move towards deployment. As you know, graphite is a critical material within the SOLO reactor core, and this component is designed toward key systems and core elements that influence thermal performance, integration and overall system availability. Achieving this prototype within required tolerances is an important technical validation of both the design and the manufacturability of the reactor. Just as importantly, this work helped establish the procedures, quality control and production standards that are required for repeatable manufacturing. In other words, this is not only about proving we can make the part once but actually helping build the industrial foundation required to scale from FOAK into serial NOAK production. These milestones are also based on our previously announced agreement with Mersen for nuclear-grade graphite and other critical materials. It reinforces that our supply chain strategy is not theoretical; it is producing tangible outcomes and supporting our target path to FOAK in 2027 and broader commercialization beginning in 2028. Overall, we view this as a meaningful proof point for Terra. It demonstrates progress at the intersection of engineering, materials and manufacturing and supports our broader objective of moving SOLO from a completed design into a repeatable deployment platform. Turning to Slide 12. What's critical to understand about SOLO is that this is not a future concept. Our solution was specifically designed to meet current industrial energy demand. We are actively engaging with customers today across a wide range of industries that need reliable carbon-free power in the 1 to 200-megawatt range — what we think of as a retail nuclear market. This is a massive underserved segment made up of thousands of industrial users around the globe who cannot access traditional nuclear but still require reliable, dependable energy. SOLO was designed to serve that market with a standardized, sellable product where bespoke, decade-long infrastructure projects that cost many billions of dollars are not suitable. Most importantly, this is the same platform scale: from single-unit deployment to multi-unit configurations capable of supporting larger loads like data centers and industrial campuses. We are addressing immediate demand today while also positioning the platform to meet the much larger energy needs of tomorrow. Now let me introduce you to Slide 13, a fundamental evolution in our service deployment. Historically, one SOLO reactor meant roughly 1 megawatt electrical output. What we have now unlocked is a configuration where multiple reactors operate in a pod with a centralized power conversion, allowing us to generate 20 megawatts from just 16 reactor cores. That shift matters. By decoupling the reactor from the turbine and optimizing at the system level, we materially improve efficiency, reduce footprint and lower overall complexity and cost. Importantly, this is not theoretical. We are developing this configuration with an on-site global turbine partner validating both the performance and the path to deployment. SOLO FOAK is a model of product into a scalable application-optimized power system. From an investor perspective, this is meaningful because we are providing an innovation now that directly lowers cost per megawatt, reduces physical footprint and expands the range of commercially viable deployments. In other words, it improves both unit economics and the total addressable market at the same time. The second innovation is how SOLO actually operates once it is deployed. What you see in Slide 14 is our ability to cover the full demand spectrum from steady baseloads to seasonal variation and short-duration peak spikes — all within a single system. We do that by combining constant nuclear assets with a small amount of integrated capacitor-based storage, allowing us to respond dynamically without having incremental reactor capacity. That's a meaningful advantage. Traditional systems require significant overbuild or large-scale battery infrastructure to handle variability. We are achieving the same outcome with a fast, simple and more capital-efficient approach. The result is a system that can operate autonomously, adapt to real-world demand and deliver consistent power without added complexity. For investors, that means we can deliver high-quality, dispatchable power without the cost and scale of traditional storage solutions. That drives a structurally lower cost curve and positions SOLO as a true replacement for both baseload and flexible generation. Turning to Slide 16. Our strategy has been consistent from day one: build a system that is simpler, faster to deploy and scalable by design. At the center of that strategy is a fundamentally different approach to conventional construction and deployment. Rather than building a nuclear project from scratch at each customer site, we are producing SOLO as a standardized factory-built system. Units are assembled in one location under controlled conditions and then delivered to the customer site for installation and connection. That matters for several reasons. First, we support a much faster path to market by reducing on-site build complexity, compressing deployment timelines and enabling a more repeatable installation process. Second, we provide a platform that can scale globally — not one custom project at a time, but an industrialized process designed for broader market penetration. This model is supported by the key building blocks we have already put in place: an advancing licensing pathway, prequalification and construction activities that have already been initiated, a simplified standardized design and a secure supply chain to support execution. Today, we have reached a point where our first-of-a-kind SOLO design is complete, our supply chain is in place, and we are funded through our initial deployment phase. From an investor standpoint, what matters is this: we are no longer quoting a concept. We are executing a deployment strategy. Slide 17 introduces the demonstration of that strategy. I want to emphasize how much more this is than just a prototype. SOLO is a building block of energy infrastructure that can be deployed, replicated and scaled. Each unit delivers renewable baseload power and heat, operates continuously and is designed to run for decades with minimal intervention. What makes SOLO truly differentiated is not just performance; it's how it's built and deployed. This is a factory assembly system designed for repeatability rather than bespoke construction. That shift from megawatt project to product is what really allows the scalability of this business. Slide 16 highlights SOLO's key differentiators. SOLO is designed to be safe by physics: there is no risk of core meltdown exposure, limited radiological risk after shutdown, and no requirement for an exclusion zone, which together support deployment across a wide range of commercial and industrial sites. The reactor is factory-built using standard components. It uses low-enriched uranium fuel that is already NRC-licensed and available at commercial scale and offers stable output of electricity, process heat and steam across diverse end-user industries. Our licensing pathway and the FOAK-to-NOAK design approach provide what we believe is an industrial-leading path to market with current cash expected to fully fund the FOAK. We also believe SOLO is well aligned with the NRC's developing Part 57 framework for micro-reactors, which is intended to better accommodate features such as factory fabrication, transportability, a model of deployment, automation and remote operation — all of which support a more streamlined and potentially faster regulatory pathway over time. To explain further, FOAK to NOAK means that the reactor we deploy first is the same reactor we intend to commercialize. We are not demonstrating one design and then redesigning for scale. Combined with our licensing approach, that design continuity is a real key differentiator for SOLO and our platform. On Slide 19, we step back from individual units and look at what makes SOLO scalable on a global basis. We see four core pillars of differentiation: global market penetration, nonproliferation alignment, power scalability and output versatility. SOLO's low-enriched uranium-based design is aligned with global nonproliferation standards and supports deployment across both U.S. and international markets. The SOLO platform is scalable from single-unit applications to multi-unit deployments depending on customer needs. Last but not least, SOLO is versatile in what it can deliver, including electricity, process heat and steam across a wide range of end markets. Moving now to Slide 20. One of the most important decisions we made earlier was not to become a manufacturer. Instead, we built Terra as an asset-light company focused on design, integration and deployment while leveraging a global network of nuclear-qualified suppliers. This allows us to remain capital efficient while still scaling to thousands of units. It also significantly reduces execution risk. We are not building manufacturing capacity from scratch; we are activating capacity that already exists. From an investor perspective, this model enables both speed and scale without the traditional capital burden associated with nuclear. The benefits of this model include commercial and regulatory advantages, an asset-light capital structure, scalability to thousands of units and accelerated time to market. Moving now to Slide 21. We have crossed a key threshold as a company. Our design is complete, our supply chain is secure, manufacturing has begun, and our regulatory process is advancing. There is no longer a concept story: we are executing toward deploying. Now I'm excited to provide an update on our roadmap to FOAK and commercialization beginning on Slide 23. This slide highlights how our licensing approach differs fundamentally from traditional nuclear. On the right, you can see the conventional pathway where each step restarts effort: you complete your initial submission, obtain first-of-a-kind approval and then effectively start over with new licensing and redesign work to reach commercial deployment. Our approach is different. First, we are pushing a parallel licensing strategy, advancing both the construction permit and the operating license submissions simultaneously where appropriate. This allows us to compress timelines and avoid the delays inherent in a step-by-step process. Second and critically, our FOAK and NOAK designs are identical. That means the unit we demonstrate is the same as the one we commercialize with only incremental design and licensing engineering between phases. Third, this leads directly to accelerated commercialization. By combining a simplified design with a regulatory pathway aligned with micro-reactors, particularly the intended scope of Part 57, we expect to move from demonstration to fixed deployment far more efficiently than traditional nuclear projects. The result is a streamlined pathway where FOAK approval effectively becomes the bridge to commercialization rather than the beginning of a new process. Moving to Slide 24. We'll keep this at a high level for now as we have worked through each of these components already. What is important to note today is how they have all come together. This roadmap shows quite simply that we are no longer advancing isolated work streams. We are operating in a phase where everything is moving seamlessly in parallel. Our regulatory process is progressing, our supply chain is in place and ready to scale, and commercially we are moving from evaluation to real site selection and deployment planning. Those three elements — licensing, manufacturing and deployment — are aligned, and that alignment is what enables the first-of-a-kind. Just as importantly, it allows us to move beyond FOAK into repeatable, scalable production rather than one-off projects. Rather than thinking about this as a timeline of individual milestones, we think about it as a convergence point where years of development transition into execution. As we move through 2026 and into 2027, that convergence is what positions us to deliver our first deployment and begin scaling from there. On the topic of scaling, I will now hand it over to Giordano to give an update on commercialization progress.
Thank you, Ale. We currently have approximately 200 units under nonbinding MOUs, representing roughly $4 billion in potential value. While these agreements are nonbinding, they reflect real counterparties, active site-level engagement and growing demand — not early-stage exploration. Customers are increasingly seeking deployable solutions to solve immediate power constraints, and that is exactly what SOLO is designed to deliver. If you look at 2027, our commercialization strategy is built around scalable deployment across U.S. and international markets, leveraging SOLO's nonproliferation-aligned design and modular architecture. SOLO's use of low-enriched uranium fuel is aligned with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and supports deployment in both nuclear-armed and non-nuclear-weapon states under appropriate safeguards. In the U.S., this enables deployment across government and defense sectors, including the Department of Defense and on and off federal land. Essentially, it supports deployment in European allied jurisdictions and non-nuclear countries under appropriate safeguards. If you look at 2028, you will find details on our first deployment site: Rock City Industrial Park. Our first-of-a-kind deployment is planned at Rock City's underground industrial park, where our MOU includes an option to deploy up to 50 reactors over time, or 50 megawatts electric of capacity. The expected initial term is 15 years with potential for up to 45 years of operations through modular core swaps subject to NRC approval. The six-million-square-foot underground site provides an ideal environment for licensing, testing and construction. Rock City will provide a controlled environment for first deployment critical for execution and validation. On Slide 29, this positions us directly within the AI infrastructure build-out, where power availability is rapidly emerging as a critical growth constraint. We are planning a 1-megawatt electric SOLO-powered pilot deployment to support next-generation AI with high-performance computing data centers with the ability to scale to 100 megawatts electric through additional SOLO units. This behind-the-meter, carbon-free solution is designed to address the growing energy bottleneck facing AI and data center expansion, while positioning Terra at the center of one of the fastest-growing and most power-intensive segments of the global economy. Moving to Slide 30. Ameresco gives us access to federal and commercial deployment channels at scale. We have entered into a comprehensive framework to evaluate siting, deployment, construction, integration, operation and decommissioning planning for SOLO reactors across U.S. federal and commercial sites. The agreement supports deployment for up to 50 SOLO reactors focusing on federal customers, such as the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, and also enables global outreach leveraging Ameresco's network. Slide 31 illustrates how SOLO addresses key challenges across four core segments: data centers and digital infrastructure, infrastructure utilities, medical and healthcare, and industrial factories. Common themes across these customers include the need to meet exponential growth in demand, reduce emissions at competitive costs, secure locally deployable power and, in some cases, support the production of life-saving radioisotopes. With that foundation, I'll turn now to Katherine for financial updates. Katherine?
Thank you, Giordano, and good morning, everyone. As you know, we previously communicated an expected filing timeline of April 15 following our extension period. While we've made progress, we did not meet that date. To be clear, this is not a function of any underlying financial performance or operational issues; rather it reflects the complexity of our structure and the reporting requirements following the business combination. This business combination includes multi-jurisdictional considerations across Italy, the Netherlands, the United States and the Cayman Islands. We are currently working through the appropriate technical accounting treatment of certain noncash items with our auditors. We expect to file the 10-K in the near term, but we believe it is more appropriate to take the necessary time to ensure the filing correctly represents the impacts of the business combination and our progress during 2025. As is typical in these situations, we expect to receive a standard notification from NASDAQ related to the timing of our filing. This is a procedural matter, and we intend to address it in the normal course within the prescribed timeframe consistent with NASDAQ's standard process. Giordano and Alessandro have provided information on the significant progress we are making across licensing, supply chain and commercial engagement. I would also like to share with you our cash balance as of December 31, 2025. This is shown on Slide 33. Total funds available: $100 million plus. As we have communicated before, we estimate it will cost us $70 million to achieve our first-of-a-kind. As we have secured our supply chain, we've been able to confirm that our estimates are aligned with or lower than the $70 million baseline. And, of course, as mentioned, the NRC is working on simplifying the regulatory process. The potential savings from these actions have not been factored into our $70 million estimate. So in conclusion, we are well positioned from a cash perspective to be fully covered up to the commercialization of the SOLO reactor. Alessandro, I'll turn it over to you.
Thank you, Katherine. Now to close, moving to Slide 35, we want to step back for a moment. Innovation was built around a simple idea that the future of energy would require a fundamentally different approach, one that is distributed, scalable and aligned with the pace of modern infrastructure. Over the past several years, we moved from that idea to a completed design, a secure supply chain, an advancing regulatory pathway and an expanding commercial pipeline. As we enter 2026, the focus shifts from building the foundation to executing at scale. From an investor perspective, the transition from development to deployment is where value is created. We believe we are positioned at the front end of that shift. Lastly, on Slide 36, we encourage investors to follow our progress through our public U.S. NRC engagements, where we hold monthly meetings with the U.S. NRC. Even yesterday and today, we are having meetings with the U.S. NRC; our second-to-last meeting is being held prior to submitting our application before entering the construction permit phase. You can access these meetings directly through our profile on the U.S. NRC website or by signing up to our mailing list. Additionally, we keep our stakeholders informed via our investor website and social channels. These channels will provide updates on regulatory milestones, commercialization progress and key partnerships as we advance toward repeatable deployment. I really wish to thank you for listening. Operator, we are now ready to open the line for questions.
分析師問答
Operator Instructions: Our first question comes from the line of Sameer Joshi with H.C. Wainwright.
Alessandro, thanks for having this call and for the update. You mentioned in closing remarks about your regulatory progress and how we can track it. Can you give us maybe a quantitative or qualitative answer in terms of how many topical reports are still outstanding and to be submitted and any other — any white papers in the final stages, because I think the mid-June deadline or sort of deadline is coming up. Just wanted to understand how that works?
Yes. Topical reports and white papers are tools that are used to anticipate topics and important discussions with the U.S. NRC. They are used during the pre-submittal phase to take the right time to prepare for the construction permit phase. So far, we have submitted about 10 topical reports and a similar number of white papers. You can find them on the U.S. NRC website. We are today doing the second-to-last meeting. The last meeting will be in early May, where we will submit an additional topical report and a couple of white papers. Then by the end of June or July, we will start the construction permit phase. The work that we have done so far through topical reports and white papers will allow us to reference those documents while producing the construction permit. We expect the construction permit to be issued in the period between June, July and September.
Understood. And then just switching topics quickly: the Mersen announcement was earlier this week. Can you explain the significance of this graphite prototype and how it progresses your development?
That's a very critical achievement because we have a lot of graphite in our reactor; it's one of the main components together with LEU fuel. Two to three years ago when we started the project, graphite availability and manufacturability was one of our primary concerns. This was discussed with Mersen. There is enough graphite to sustain even our commercialization phase. But the other concern was manufacturability of the graphite pieces that go into our reactor. Given the design, we need to do a lot of drillings in the graphite, many holes, and the number of holes and the precision of those holes is fundamental to ensure the physical behavior of our reactors. These achievements, while announced just last week, actually began in October–November last year — immediately after we became a public company. This milestone is fundamental because it proves what we defined is achievable from a manufacturing point of view. The first two pieces have been built and demonstrated to be within expected tolerance limits for manufacturability and design. Now it's a question of moving from the two pieces to the number of pieces we need for our reactors. We will standardize the work because what was important during production of these first two pieces was deriving the procedures by which to operate the next manufacturing runs of those graphite blocks. So now we have the procedure, and we know how to do that for all blocks inside our reactor.
Alessandro, it's good to see the methodical approach of de-risking each and every step of the process.
Our next question comes from the line of George Gianarikas with Canaccord Genuity.
Appreciate the updates on the commercial traction. I'm wondering if you could talk about any additional traction you may be seeing with hard-to-abate sectors like mining and any competitive updates there? In other words, to the extent you're having conversations with some potential customers in those sectors, what are the alternative approaches that they may be exploring as well?
I'll start, George, and maybe I'll ask Giordano to complement. Mining is definitely one of the sectors we focus on. As we discussed several times, it is a sector where SOLO fits particularly well because we can scale up while reducing the number of reactors by using single or few units of power conversion. The solution I introduced today — the pod concept — is very important for industries like mining and, in general, for all industries that need a large amount of power and for which we can provide a solution that is more efficient, less costly and with a smaller footprint. Giordano, can you complement in terms of what we're seeing in mining?
Yes, absolutely. Alessandro's point is very important, especially when discussing the 16-reactor node that can deliver 20 megawatts electric with the help of centralized power conversion. Some conversations we've been having with customers have been moving deeper into these technical topics, and we are structuring commitments to proceed to next phases. We foresee those coming up in the near term. We view this as a broad global deployment opportunity, whether in the U.S. or internationally, thanks to our nonproliferation alignment and our technology's deployability. It's definitely an interesting sector, and we are very committed to executing on this as much as on data centers.
Maybe as a follow-up: in the past, you've shared a slide talking about roughly $19 million at 1,000 units of revenue per reactor in a certain cost and margin profile. Now as you continue to work through your supply chain, particularly in light of the recent graphite announcements and especially with some of the shortages in helium that we're reading about, are you still committed to that revenue and margin profile? Have these agreements reinforced that financial profile at scale?
That's a very good question. When we down-selected from 130 suppliers to about 30, we gained clearer visibility on the cost of our first-of-a-kind and the commercialization phase. When we selected those 30 suppliers, we began real contracting and ordering, so now we know many of the costs for FOAK. We also conducted an exercise with those suppliers to estimate how much cost can decrease going from FOAK to NOAK. So today, better than one year ago, we know that our model to build the FOAK is real and within our evaluation. We have strong confidence that what is in the plan is achievable because our discussions with suppliers have confirmed those assumptions.
Our next question comes from the line of Subash Chandra with StoneX.
So the first question is: has site characterization been completed at Rock City?
No. What we have done so far is collect all the information from Rock City in terms of metrology, geography, flooding, seismic and other data. This data has been collected and we are actively interacting with the owner of the site. We are advancing with the preparation of our environmental plan and this will be submitted in the next few months to the NRC in parallel with the construction permit phase. We have identified the point inside Rock City where the reactor will be located. We also plan to start interaction with the municipality and the public in the next few weeks and months. The important point is that all the data needed to prepare the environmental impact analysis are available. The environmental analysis itself is not complicated, but what takes more time is collecting the needed data. These documents were available from the owner of the site because Rock City is an industrial site, so we received those documents from the owner.
Are there any local permits required?
Yes, some local authorizations will be required. We are interacting with local authorities and these local requirements will be part of the environmental plan.
Understood. A follow-up: your commercial strategy is to sell the reactors. Can you clarify whether you intend to sell the physical reactors, license IP, or what revenue streams you're targeting in the final model?
So far our main business model is to sell the reactor. In particular, we are focusing on what we call the nuclear retail market — many small and medium industries that need from 1 to 10 or 20 megawatts and that are struggling with electricity costs worldwide. For these customers, the SOLO solution may be very beneficial in terms of cost and reliability. Our business model today is focused on selling the reactor, but we have also started discussions with potential offtakers for different business models where we provide electricity without selling the reactor. This depends on the offtaker and their commercial needs.
Okay. So you're open to a PPA strategy?
Definitely, yes. This is not the core business model we are pushing today, but we are engaging in discussions where a PPA is considered.
My final question: manufacturing, loading the reactor, transporting it — do you anticipate additional regulation around transportation? How easy do you think that will be?
This was part of our discussion with the U.S. NRC. One of the topics on the agenda was factory manufacturability and transportation. We are engaging with the Italian regulator to understand how to transport a fresh reactor vessel — 'fresh' meaning the fuel has not been used — and from the U.S. perspective we are interacting with the NRC to demonstrate that during transportation and related handling our reactors remain safe and secure. There is a legal and regulatory framework that exists. We are connecting the dots between the Italian regulator, the U.S. regulator and the U.S. Department of Transportation, which also needs to be involved. We are preparing a white paper on that which will be part of the additional documents we submit to the NRC. This topic is more connected with operating license considerations and extends beyond the construction permit phase; it goes into later stages, potentially after September 2026.
Our next question comes from the line of Craig Irwin with ROTH Capital Partners.
So Alessandro, I was particularly interested in the discussion around the SOLO node, the fact that you haven't got the first-of-a-kind yet but right now you're announcing essentially a lower capex or a lower LCOE for the 20-megawatt bites. We get a lot of questions about long-term cost-out profiles. Can you give more color on the portfolio of options you have to achieve similar cost-out? Do you see it as possible for Terra to achieve an analog of learning curve reductions as production ramps and deployments go global?
I think we can do better than traditional learning curves. In the presentation today, we did not assume any additional reductions beyond our current model. We stated a $0.07 per kilowatt-hour estimate over five years for the unique SOLO reactor with its own sub-plant — meaning each reactor with its own generator. The idea to move to a SOLO node concept was already part of our design and we decided to announce it today because we are moving fast in cooperation with a major turbine manufacturer. With the SOLO node, several reactors are coupled with a single power conversion unit, decreasing the number of components, reducing cost and increasing efficiency. The example we discussed is 16 reactors delivering 20 megawatts electric, roughly a reduction in the number of reactors and therefore cost in that configuration. Our ability to load-follow is unique due to the small size and granularity of our units. We can maintain reactor primary side at full power and provide dispatch flexibility on the secondary side through power conversion and a relatively small amount of storage. The storage we need is significantly smaller than what would be required for large systems. The SOLO node concept plus modest storage gives us confidence SOLO can compete with other sources. While our base numbers remain conservative today, the node architecture and load-follow capability should yield additional savings and improved economics as we scale.
Understood. My follow-up is around the NRC's Part 57 rulemaking. With public comment this spring and expected formalized rule later this year, do you see Part 57 language potentially impacting development costs or timelines for your commercialization? Is there a possibility for expedited review of different subcomponents and system features?
This is an important question. Part 57 was expected to be published around April 24. From our discussions with the NRC, it looks like Part 57 is broadly favorable for SOLO. It's designed around the factory-built, transportable, multi-unit concept. Three areas where we expect benefits from Part 57 for commercialization: first, it reduces the need for large on-site operator teams that Part 50 typically requires; second, it supports multi-unit licensing, which matters for commercial economics of micro-reactors deployed in multiples; third, Part 57 provides a pathway to accelerate licensing for commercial units when the FOAK licensed under Part 50 is essentially identical to the commercial design under Part 57. Part 57 is not expected to affect the FOAK licensing process — FOAK will proceed under Part 50 — but it should simplify and accelerate the licensing of subsequent commercial units, which is highly beneficial for scaling and cost reduction.
Our next question comes from the line of Ryan Pfingst with B. Riley Securities.
I'll just ask one on the commercial side. Can you discuss potential customer order conversion? Do you think customers will wait for the FOAK to deploy before placing a firm order or could we see orders actually come ahead of first deployment?
I'll start and then I'll leave to Giordano. We interact daily with potential customers. For instance, a couple of weeks ago we had a discussion with a company that is present at several European airports where energy demand is critical and will increase in the coming years. We are doing similar work for other industries, including smaller operations that, collectively, have large power needs. We are working to transform interest into orders. Potential customers need validation of our technology, and what we are doing with regulators and the supply chain provides that validation. As supply chain outcomes become available and we can announce further progress, I expect increased confidence from potential offtakers and more conversions to firm orders in the coming months.
What I can add is that our commercialization approach is methodical. For offtake agreements we are exploring, we focus first on technical validation and then on the commercial terms. As we develop the FOAK, the supply chain advances — evidenced by the Mersen prototype — and as licensing and manufacturing progress, we expect our order book to grow in the next few months. Conversations have been positive and there is substantial behind-the-scenes technical work that is ongoing to establish commercialization strategies for larger deployments.
Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our question-and-answer session. I'll turn the floor back to Mr. Petruzzi for any final comments.
Okay. I would like to really thank everyone for attending this call. We would like to keep our investors and offtakers informed. We encourage you to follow us on our social channels and, in particular, to follow the updates that regularly occur on the U.S. NRC website, which I think is the most tangible demonstration of where we are going. Thank you again and we look forward to meeting you soon again.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.