The major utility Duke Energy is aiming to build a small nuclear reactor at an existing coal plant site in North Carolina, hoping that the new technology can help it meet the state’s clean energy targets while also keeping power flowing from the plant.

Duke Energy, headquartered in Charlotte, said last year in a plan filed with the state utility commission that it could have a small modular reactor, or SMR, plant online by 2035 at the site of the existing coal-burning Belews Creek Steam Station site in Stokes County, north of Winston-Salem and Greensboro, and that it is looking for a location for a second plant in the state.