Hitachi’s nuclear division grew revenue 48% year over year, according to figures the company published with its second-quarter results on October 28. The business booked ¥65.3 billion, roughly $415 million, in the period. Behind the growth sits a delivery clock: the company plans to hand over the first of four small modular reactors to Ontario Power Generation in 2030.
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Nuclear is a small slice of a much larger energy segment, but it is the slice with the longest lead times and the most scrutiny. Hitachi’s North American energy revenue rose 49% to ¥320.6 billion, about $2 billion, and the company projects full-year fiscal 2026 energy revenue of ¥4,060 billion, up 26%.
Where nuclear sits inside Hitachi’s energy results
Utility Dive’s Brian Martucci, drawing on Hitachi’s results release, reported that the energy segment’s revenue reached ¥960.4 billion, up 28%, while orders rose 47% to ¥1,566.2 billion, driven by transmission and data center demand. Power Grid revenue was ¥893.7 billion. Nuclear at ¥65.3 billion is therefore under a tenth of the segment, which means a 48% jump moves the group total only slightly even as it makes the reactor business look like the fastest-growing part of the portfolio. The Utility Dive report does not give a separate quarterly growth rate for nuclear beyond the 48% year-over-year figure.
Chief financial officer Tomomi Kato, speaking through a translator, told analysts the company had so far seen no delays or payment problems, and that orders would begin turning into revenue next year.
The BWRX-300 and the 2030 delivery date
The reactors in question are 300-megawatt BWRX-300 units developed with GE Vernova. Ontario Power Generation is building the first at Darlington, near Bowmanville, Ontario. Ontario approved construction of that unit on May 8, 2025, as World Nuclear News reported, with a budget of 20.9 billion Canadian dollars for the four-unit program. GE Vernova’s product page says construction began in May 2025, puts completion of the first unit in late 2029, and targets commercial operation by the end of 2030; four units together would supply 1.2 gigawatts.
Progress on the ground is early-stage by reactor standards. GE Vernova’s own account of the project says site preparation is finished and steel installation and concrete pouring come next, with the reactor pressure vessel being fabricated by BWXT in Cambridge, Ontario. That progress update describes it as an active project rather than a design on paper, a distinction that matters because most competing small reactors have not reached construction.
The Darlington approval carried named backers. Nicolle Butcher, president and chief executive of Ontario Power Generation, called the May 2025 decision a historic moment, Ontario energy minister Stephen Lecce described it as a historic day for Canada as construction started on the first small modular reactor in the G7, and Lisa McBride of GE Vernova Hitachi SMR Canada called it a proud moment for the company and Ontario. OPG had received a licence to construct from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission the month before.
GE Vernova describes each BWRX-300 as a boiling water reactor producing up to 300 megawatts, enough for about 300,000 homes, with passive safety systems and a 60-year design life. The design burns low-enriched uranium, the same fuel type used by the American commercial fleet, which spares buyers a reliance on the scarcer high-assay fuel some rival designs need. That fuel point appears in Utility Dive’s coverage of the Tennessee application.
Tennessee in 2032 and the price of long contracts
The Tennessee Valley Authority has chosen the Hitachi and GE Vernova joint venture to build at least one BWRX-300, with delivery set for 2032. TVA became the first American utility to file a small modular reactor construction permit application when it applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in May 2025 for a 300-megawatt unit at its Clinch River site, and Utility Dive’s coverage of that filing recorded a target of commercial operation at the end of 2032, subject to regulatory approval. GE Vernova lists that permit review as still pending, and says the Department of Energy announced a $400 million grant to TVA in December 2025. Beyond North America, the same page lists ORLEN Synthos Green Energy in Poland planning about 24 units across six locations and Vattenfall down-selecting the design for possible reactors at Ringhals in Sweden.
Kato said Hitachi protects itself on long-lead contracts through price indexing, which passes cost increases along while equipment is built. He said the company could not accept a long-term contract otherwise and believed it was managing the process well. Hitachi’s own annual report, quoted by Utility Dive, flags long-term projects and those using new technologies as risks that could force contract changes or termination, without naming the nuclear business.
A 48% revenue rise is a statement about work already under contract. Whether the 2030 and 2032 delivery dates hold will show up in later quarters, and Hitachi’s next results are the earliest place to look.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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