Deep Fission Filed for an IPO and the SMR Sector Keeps Outpacing Its Own Reactors

Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed a memorandum of understanding to end a four-month war on June 17. By this morning, US crude had fallen below $75 a barrel for the first time since March, down to roughly $74, after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a 60-day sanctions waiver on Iranian oil sales. Brent has dropped $17 across four trading sessions. Ship traffic through the strait is recovering too, sort of: a daily average of 23 transits over the weekend, up from single digits at the height of the war in April, but still nowhere close to the prewar average of 130 vessels a day. More than 500 ships remain stuck waiting to get out of the Gulf, and clearing the mines Iran laid is expected to take weeks at minimum. Then on Saturday, Iran threatened to close the strait again, this time over Israeli strikes in Lebanon, a completely different front in a conflict that apparently has more fronts than anyone accounted for. Away from all of that, the actual clean energy industry kept doing what it does regardless of who is threatening to close what. PowerBank booked $94.7 million in potential tax credits on a single project announcement. Enphase started shipping its most powerful microinverter yet. None of that required a peace deal to make sense, and none of it is waiting around to find out if this one holds.

Oil Fell Below $75 This Morning but the Shipping Data Says the Strait Is Nowhere Close to Normal

On June 17, Trump and Pezeshkian signed a memorandum of understanding at the Palace of Versailles to end the war that began in February, with the signing taking place during a dinner with French President Emmanuel Macron following the G7 summit. The next day, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who mediated the negotiations, announced the MOU had entered into force with immediate effect, with Iran agreeing to instantly reopen the Strait of Hormuz and the US lifting its naval blockade of Iranian ports. By this morning, US crude had dropped 2.7% to roughly $74 a barrel, the first time below $75 since March, after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a 60-day sanctions waiver on Iranian oil sales. PVM Oil Associates analyst Tamas Varga called the $17 drop in Brent across four sessions a discernible vote of confidence that the worst of the supply disruption is behind the market.

The shipping data tells a more cautious story than the price chart. Kpler, the tracking firm behind MarineTraffic, recorded a daily average of 23 transits through the strait from Friday through Sunday, a real improvement from the single-digit counts seen at the height of the war in April, but still a fraction of the prewar daily average of 130 vessels. Most ships transiting are sticking to Iran-designated routes or switching off their transponders entirely while crossing, which is not exactly the behavior of a waterway that has returned to normal. More than 500 vessels are estimated to still be waiting to exit the Gulf, and the process of clearing the channel of naval mines is expected to take weeks at a minimum, according to reporting cited by Al Jazeera. Vanda Insights founder Vandana Hari put it plainly: the market’s slide is entirely sentiment-driven, and the hardest part, actually delivering on the pledges, is still ahead.

And then, on Saturday, Iran threatened to close the strait again. Not over anything to do with the US deal directly, but over ongoing Israeli attacks in Lebanon, a separate front that has nothing to do with the memorandum signed at Versailles three days earlier and everything to do with why nobody in the oil market is fully relaxing yet. This is the fourth or fifth time in 2026 that a ceasefire announcement has been followed within days by some fresh complication that reopens the question of whether anything has actually been resolved. The April ceasefire collapsed within weeks. The market dropping $17 on this one is a bet that this time is different. The shipping data, the threatened closure, and the 500 ships still queued up outside the Gulf are the reasons that bet is not yet a sure thing.

PowerBank Booked $94.7 Million in Potential Tax Credits Across Two States and Nobody Mentioned the War Once

PowerBank Corporation (Nasdaq: PBK; Cboe CA: PBK) announced on June 18 that two of its solar and storage projects across New York and Pennsylvania carry an estimated combined value of $94.7 million in potential tax credits, covering 97 megawatts DC of solar and 42 megawatt-hours of energy storage capacity expected to power the equivalent of 11,000 homes. This follows a string of smaller community solar announcements from the company through May and June, including a 3.1 MW project in New York and a hybrid solar-storage project in Allegany County eligible for NYSERDA incentive programs.

PowerBank is not a large company and these are not large projects by utility-scale standards. What is notable is the pace. A community solar developer booking nearly $95 million in tax credit value across two states in a single announcement, on top of multiple smaller project disclosures in the prior month, is moving with a clear sense of urgency around the July 4 Section 45Y and 48E construction deadline. The tax credit phaseout under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act terminates the full value of those credits for projects that have not begun physical construction by July 4. Eleven days from now. Every developer with a project anywhere close to shovel-ready has the same calendar entry circled.

The equipment side of the industry kept moving on its own schedule too. Enphase Energy (Nasdaq: ENPH) began production shipments of its IQ9S-3P Commercial Microinverter on June 18, built with gallium nitride technology and described as the company’s most powerful commercial microinverter to date. Tigo Energy (Nasdaq: TYGO) began GO Battery shipments in Europe the day before, and Array Technologies (Nasdaq: ARRY) launched a new tracker system on June 16 designed specifically to reduce wind stow energy losses and improve resiliency. Three separate hardware companies, three separate product launches, all in the same week that a peace deal was being signed at a French palace. The solar supply chain does not appear to have been waiting on the outcome of that dinner.

Deep Fission Filed Confidentially for an IPO and the SMR Sector Keeps Producing Filings Faster Than Reactors

Deep Fission, Inc., a Berkeley-based advanced nuclear company developing small modular pressurized water reactors designed to be installed one mile underground in boreholes, confidentially submitted a draft registration statement for an IPO with the SEC on April 22, following an $80 million financing round in February that included investors from Blue Owl Capital’s Real Assets platform. The underground siting approach is the company’s core differentiator, intended to address public safety concerns and reduce the cost of containment structures that drive much of the capital expense in conventional reactor design.

The honest read on the SMR sector right now is that it is producing financial paper faster than it is producing operating reactors. NuScale remains the only company with an NRC-approved design and is working through the TVA program toward up to 6 gigawatts of deployment, still years out. Rolls-Royce SMR landed a multibillion-pound export deal in Sweden this month. The Department of Energy has roughly $800 million committed to TVA and Holtec for early deployments in Tennessee and Michigan. Deep Fission joins a growing list of companies, alongside Oklo, X-Energy, and others, that have gone or are going public well before generating commercial revenue. That is not unusual for an industry this early in a deployment cycle, but it does mean the SMR investment thesis right now is overwhelmingly a bet on capital markets access and regulatory progress rather than on near-term cash flow. China and Russia remain the only countries with commercially operating grid-connected SMRs. The Western race is still mostly a race to be ready, not a race to be running.

July 4 Construction Deadline, Hormuz Tanker Traffic Recovery, NextEra Dominion Regulatory Review, and Deep Fission S-1 to Watch

July 4 Section 45Y and 48E construction deadline: eleven days. The PowerBank announcement is one data point in what should be an accelerating pattern of project mobilization announcements between now and the deadline. Watch for a cluster of similar tax-credit-driven announcements from other smaller developers, and for any update from the IRS on enforcement of the physical work test.

Hormuz tanker traffic recovery: 23 transits a day against a prewar average of 130 is the number to watch climbing, or not. Kpler updates its tracking data continuously. Watch for whether the daily average keeps rising toward prewar levels over the next two weeks, or whether the Saturday closure threat over Lebanon escalates into something that reverses the trend.

NextEra-Dominion regulatory review: the $67 billion combination announced May 18 still requires regulatory approval across multiple state utility commissions and potentially federal antitrust review given the combined scale. Watch for the first state regulatory filing responses, which will set the timeline for the rest of the year.

Deep Fission public S-1: the confidential filing from April typically precedes a public filing by several months. Watch for the public S-1, which will be the first detailed financial disclosure from an underground SMR developer and a useful comparison point against NuScale’s and Oklo’s public disclosures.

Sources

Editorial Disclosure

This analysis is based entirely on publicly available information including company press releases sourced directly from company websites and named wire services, SEC filings, and verified news sources. Securities discussed include PowerBank Corporation (Nasdaq: PBK; Cboe CA: PBK), Enphase Energy Inc. (Nasdaq: ENPH), Tigo Energy Inc. (Nasdaq: TYGO), and Array Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq: ARRY). Deep Fission Inc. is a private company referenced for its confidential IPO filing and is not yet publicly traded. NuScale Power Corporation (NYSE: SMR), NextEra Energy Inc. (NYSE: NEE), and Dominion Energy Inc. (NYSE: D) are referenced for sector context. aktiego.com has not received any compensation from any company mentioned, their management, investor relations representatives, or any third party. No staff member or principal of aktiego.com holds a position in any security mentioned at the time of publication. All company-specific data verified against original press releases from company websites or named wire services and SEC filings. Oil price and shipping traffic data sourced to NBC News, Al Jazeera, and named data providers including Kpler, timestamped through June 23, 2026. Tax credit information sourced to named legal and regulatory publications and does not constitute tax or legal advice. Forward-looking commentary regarding diplomatic outcomes, regulatory timelines, IPO filings, and market developments is opinion only. References to individual companies are for market context and analytical purposes only and do not constitute investment recommendations. All securities carry significant investment risk including total loss of capital. Coverage on aktiego.com is provided for informational and educational purposes only. aktiego.com is not a registered investment advisor. Nothing in this article constitutes financial, investment, or professional advice. Readers are encouraged to conduct their own due diligence and consult a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions. For more information please see our full DISCLAIMER.

Deep Fission Filed for an IPO and the SMR Sector Keeps Outpacing Its Own Reactors

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