Westinghouse Columbia LEU+ Fuel Factory, Hopkins, South Carolina

A construction project located in Hopkins.

A Bit About Westinghouse Columbia LEU+ Fuel Factory, Hopkins, South Carolina

Westinghouse Electric Company is building a new nuclear fuel factory next to its Columbia Fuel Fabrication Facility south of Columbia, South Carolina, and it’s spending about $1 billion to do it. The company announced the Columbia LEU+ Fuel Factory on Oct. 21, 2026, with site preparation already underway and operations targeted for 2030.

The plant will make LEU+ fuel, enriched to between 5% and 8% uranium-235. Most U.S. reactors run on fuel in the 3% to 5% range. Westinghouse calls it its largest single manufacturing investment for the operating fleet and the first fleet-scale U.S. nuclear fuel factory in more than 50 years.

Project Scope

The existing plant dates to 1968 and sits on 1,156 acres off Bluff Road in Hopkins, in Lower Richland County. It’s one of the world’s largest fuel plants, making pellets, rods and assemblies with more than 1,200 employees. But Westinghouse says its layout and process technology can’t handle the higher enrichment, so LEU+ gets a new building next door instead of a retrofit.

The new line will use a dry conversion process similar to the one at Westinghouse’s UK fuel plant, with more automation than the 1960s facility. At peak, the job is expected to host several hundred contractors plus an in-house project team of 30 to 50. Westinghouse hasn’t named a designer or builder, and it hasn’t disclosed the building’s size.

Licensing is the long pole. Westinghouse started pre-application meetings with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on the design in 2024. Richland County approved long-term property tax breaks, and the company has approval for $72.6 million in federal clean energy tax credits.

Why It Matters

Fuel supply has quietly become a bottleneck for the nuclear revival. LEU+ lets plants stretch refueling cycles from 18 to 24 months and supports power uprates, which is why it fits the Energy Department’s UPRISE push to squeeze about 5 GW more from the existing fleet by 2029. Lead test assemblies of Westinghouse’s LEU+ fuel, made in Columbia, went into Vogtle Unit 2 last year.

The timing is awkward, though. Utilities want uprates by 2029, and this factory isn’t due to run until 2030. Early reloads will lean on whatever capacity exists elsewhere.

There’s also history at the site. Reports cited by the SC Daily Gazette describe decades-old groundwater contamination, uranium buildup in air pollution controls in 2016 and a 2018 leak through the plant floor. Westinghouse says the new process cuts chemical use. Regulators and neighbors will want to see that in the license application, not just the press release.