What the FY2027 request buys
Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project 250 of PE 0604250D8Z. This is the budget justification's own description of work that has not happened yet — the one thing no other level of the budget carries.
Pele will complete assembly and testing of the individual Reactor, Power Conversion, and Intermediate Heat Exchanger Modules, and deliver all to the Prime contractor facility for integrated Factory Acceptance Testing. At the completion of Factor Acceptance Testing, all elements will be prepared for shipment to INL. Pele will complete all site preparation at INL, to be ready to install modules and hardware upon arrival in early FY 2028
The decrease supports phasing required for the Pele development cycle with remaining materials and components placed on contract in FY 2026, and final assembly planned for FY 2027.
FY2025–FY2026: what came before
Prior-year accomplishments and current-year plans from the same exhibit. Context for the FY2027 plan, not a series — an activity partitions its project exactly in the request year, but can under-cover it in earlier years.
Pele will complete detailed designs and drawings of all reactor and plant systems as well as the site at Idaho National Laboratory, and initiate procurements for all materials and components required to assemble the plant. Pele will complete the Preliminary Safety Analysis Report (PSAR) and submit to the safety authority, Department of Energy, for approval. The Pele core cartridge assembly will be completed and the reactor assembly will begin. Pele will complete development of the Control Module, and continue development of the Power Conversion and Intermediate Heat Exchanger Modules. Pele will complete production of the TRISO fuel compacts and transport the fuel to INL in preparation for reactor fueling in FY 2028. Pele will initiate production of the concrete pad and shield walls for the operational site at INL. The FY 2026 plan includes $41 million of discretionary (Congressional Add) and $209.1 million of mandatory (reconciliation) for a total of $250.100 million.
Continue to purchase hardware and begin assembly of the four Pele modules. Fabricate and lay down concrete pad at the test site at Idaho National Labs (INL) while finalizing design of the rest of the concrete structure. Complete fuel for Pele core and ship to Idaho for preparation and storage. The SCO team will continue to work with the NRC in developing a regulatory process for future transport of microreactors. SCO will also support the development of requirements for a potential Service transition.
Three years, and no five-year plan
An R-2A activity publishes the prior year, the current year and the budget year. The FYDP outyears exist at project and program-element level and are deliberately absent here rather than inferred. Estimate types are colored and never summed into one figure.
| Fiscal Year | Estimate Type | Amount ($M) |
|---|---|---|
| FY2025 | Actual | 83.8 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 0.0 |
| FY2027 | Request | 96.6 |
This activity is 3.7% of project 250's FY2027 request and 3.7% of PE 0604250D8Z's. In the request year the activities under a project sum to it exactly; in the current year they under-cover it in about 9% of cases, so an activity's delta can legitimately exceed its parent's and the two must not be compared row to row.
34 activities in project 250
Every R-2A line of this project, largest FY2027 request first. Linked where the activity has enough of its own narrative to carry a page; the rest are shown in full on the program-element page.