Energy

TerraPower broke ground in April of 2026 on the flagship Natrium plant's Kemmerer Unit 1 in Wyoming. Anticipated to be the first utility-scale advanced nuclear power plant in the United States, the pioneering facility will feature a 345-MW sodium-cooled fast reactor with an integrated molten salt-based energy system. Each Natrium reactor will have the capacity to increase output to 500 MW for over five hours in response to peaks in demand, supplying the equivalent energy needed to power 400,000 homes.

California State University, Bakersfield broke ground on the Energy Innovation Building (EIB) in January of 2026. Designed by AC Martin, the 56,000-sf facility will advance STEM education and accelerate the creation of a highly skilled workforce in the region. The three-story structure will provide more than 10,000 sf of teaching lab space, over 8,000 sf of research space, 1,500 sf of student collaboration space, and 20 offices for faculty and staff.

The University of California, Berkeley broke ground in November of 2025 on the Bakar Labs for Energy + Materials to establish beacon for excellence in entrepreneurship. The 146,000-sf facility will provide world-class wet laboratories and collaboration space for research initiatives and up to 75 early-stage companies. Designed by Gensler to ensure flexibility and adaptability through a reconfigurable framework, the five-story structure will house 3D printing studios, offices, and meeting and conference rooms.

The University of Louisville's J.B. Speed School of Engineering opened the Student Success & Research Building in September of 2025 in Kentucky. The 114,000-sf facility was designed by SmithGroup and Luckett & Farley to offer a maker space, modern classrooms, laboratories, conference rooms, and teamwork areas.

The College of Eastern Idaho is constructing the Future Tech building on the Idaho Falls campus. The $50 million facility will leverage connections with the region’s institutional and industry leaders to realize advances in energy resources, sustainability practices, and technological applications, while providing hands-on training to address growing workforce demands in those fields.

Mass timber construction is widely lauded for its sustainability benefits, including wood’s natural carbon sequestration, lower embodied energy footprint, lighter weight as compared to steel or concrete, and essential renewability. But does it pay off in terms of a university’s performance standards and cost concerns when embarking on a project as ambitious as Oregon State University’s Jen-Hsun and Lori Mills Huang Collaborative Innovation Complex, a $213 million, 143,000-sf facility dedicated to advanced programs in artificial intelligence, robotics, energy, and materials science? Scott Ashford, OSU’s dean of the College of Engineering, and Libby Ramirez, the university’s resident architect, argue that with careful strategy and an eye toward the data, the answer is “yes.”

San Diego State University opened the Sciences and Engineering Laboratories in August of 2025 on the Imperial Valley campus in Brawley, Calif. Spanning 37,000 sf, the flexible structure houses teaching labs, interdisciplinary lecture spaces, specialized environments for research, core facilities, and 45 faculty and administrative offices. A STEM innovation hub is augmented by collaborative venues for public and private partners to work side by side with faculty and students.

Savannah River National Laboratory opened the Advanced Manufacturing Collaborative (AMC) in August of 2025 on the campus of the University of South Carolina Aiken. Designed by STOA Architects and Page (now part of Stantec), the $66 million facility will enable the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management to engage in collaborative discovery with academic institutions, industry partners, and government agencies at the city, state, and federal level. 

Fermi America is partnering with the Texas Tech University System to establish the Advanced Energy and Intelligence Campus in Amarillo. Also known as the HyperGrid, the visionary development will provide crucial infrastructure to meet the growing demands of artificial intelligence, data innovation, and sustainable energy. The 5,769-acre site will accommodate 18 million sf of data center space and will eventually generate up to 11 gigawatts of IT capacity.

The U.S. Department of Energy is constructing the Stable Isotope Production and Research Center (SIPRC) on the main campus of Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Designed by Gresham Smith, the $325 million facility will address a critical need for stable isotopes in medicine, science, industry, and security. SIPRC will be the nation’s first domestic production facility for enriched stable isotopes since 1998 and will reduce current dependence on diminishing reserves and foreign suppliers. 

The University of Pennsylvania opened the $173 million Vagelos Laboratory for Energy Science & Technology in December of 2024 in Philadelphia. Designed by Behnisch Architekten, the seven-story building accommodates the Vagelos Integrated Program in Energy Research (VIPER), an undergraduate dual-degree initiative run jointly by the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Colorado State University broke ground in October of 2024 on ATLAS, the Advanced Technology Lasers for Applications and Science facility in Fort Collins. Created in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fusion Energy Sciences program, the development is made possible by a $150 million public-private partnership with Marvel Fusion. A trio of ultra-high-power lasers that can be used separately or in combination will drive innovative discoveries in clean energy, medicine, and fundamental research.

Caltech opened the $148 million Resnick Sustainability Center in October of 2024 in Pasadena, Calif. Featuring transdisciplinary laboratories with specialized equipment, the 79,727-sf facility enables investigators and innovators from across the Caltech community to engage in collaborative discovery. The four-story structure currently houses four research hubs:

The U.S. Department of Energy broke ground in September of 2024 on the Energy Materials and Processing at Scale (EMAPS) facility in Golden, Colorado. Located on the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's South Table Mountain Campus, the $224 million development will create a direct path from bench-scale materials and process innovations to pilot-scale integration and production.

The U.S. Department of Energy dedicated the $75 million Grid Storage Launchpad in August of 2024 at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash. Accelerating the development of novel decarbonization solutions, the 85,000-sf facility provides 30 energy research labs, multiple conference rooms, and open office areas with flexible workstations for 100 staff members.