2025.09.24 | Utility Crisis Point: Sempra’s Back-to-Basics Meets the Advanced Nuclear Peak Amidst Policy War

Current Events - The Electric Utility Today

The utility sector is undergoing major strategic shifts, highlighted by Sempra’s $10 billion sale of a large stake in its infrastructure partners to focus 95% of earnings on regulated U.S. utilities, prioritizing stable, predictable returns. Simultaneously, the push for massive growth is accelerating as Evergy and Terrapower advance plans for the Natrium advanced nuclear reactor in Kansas, a 500 MW-capable technology specifically suited to handle the high variable load of data centers. This need for massive long-term investment is colliding with a profound policy divide, where aggressive state-level decarbonization efforts contrast sharply with conflicting federal signals, drastically increasing the cost of capital and policy risk. Ultimately, as investors demand concrete execution over potential and the industry contends with ongoing physical threats like wildfires, the central challenge remains defining a truly credible, fully funded, long-term life cycle plan for these new advanced nuclear technologies.