Policy and licensing / Kentucky

Kentucky: SMR policy and licensing

Selected federal measures and selected state measures whose official text was opened. This is not a complete list of laws, rules or programmes for any jurisdiction. A state without a page here is not a finding that it has no policy, and these pages do not rate or prefer any state. Nothing here implies that a project is eligible for, or approved under, any measure.

Federal measures apply in Kentucky as everywhere in the United States and are listed once on the federal page. They are not counted here.

Laws, rules and executive directives

• Kentucky KRS 164.2805: Nuclear Reactor Site Readiness Pilot Program · In effect
  Ky. Rev. Stat. § 164.2805 (2026 Ky. Acts ch. 56, sec. 1) · Kentucky General Assembly · affects: Project funding
  Kentucky's compiled KRS 164.2805 took effect on 15 July 2026. It creates a nuclear site-readiness pilot and allows the General Assembly, on the Authority's recommendation, to award application-cost grants capped at $25 million per project. The covered facility is Generation III Plus, Generation IV, or later, not a small modular reactor as such. No award is recorded.
  Not approved or pending: The statute says the General Assembly may award up to one-third of costs, not to exceed $25,000,000 per project. This page records no applicant, no recommendation, no appropriation, and no award. Forfeiture conditions apply if a recipient misses later NRC or construction deadlines. No project is named. A Kentucky location does not create eligibility.
• Kentucky KRS 278.615: nuclear permit and license cost recovery · In effect
  Ky. Rev. Stat. § 278.615 (2026 Ky. Acts ch. 56, sec. 2) · Kentucky General Assembly · affects: Utility cost recovery
  Kentucky's compiled KRS 278.615 took effect on 15 July 2026. It allows the commission to consider recovery of a regulated utility's costs of seeking specified NRC permits for a new nuclear energy generating facility in the state. The facility class is Generation III Plus, Generation IV, or later. No recovery order was opened, and the statute does not approve a reactor.
  Not approved or pending: No commission cost-recovery order was opened. The statute says the commission may allow recovery; it does not require it. Amounts offset by a KRS 164.2805 grant are excluded, and no such grant is recorded. No project is named.

Bills, proposed rules and consultations

• None recorded in this pilot.

Funding and support programmes

• None recorded in this pilot.

NRC permissions and applications for tracked projects located in Kentucky

Listed by project location only. The Kentucky measures above do not license reactors; the NRC does.

• None recorded.