The economics of MetroVolt.
Kronos does not claim MetroVolt's grid economics. Its binding constraint is a single input that does not yet exist at scale — affordable helium-3 — so the honest answer is a gate, not a price.
- Binding constraint
- Helium-3 price and supply
- Gate
- Future (lunar) helium-3 supply, ~2036+
- Status
- Provisional — not frozen
- Near-term revenue
- The breeder, not the burner
The Kronos publication set freezes the burner's physics but keeps its economics provisional — and MetroVolt is the clearest reason why. Its cost of energy is dominated not by capital or construction learning but by the price of its fuel, helium-3, which today trades at scarcity prices and is not available in the quantities a commercial fleet would need.
So Kronos states a gate rather than a grid price: the MetroVolt fleet becomes economic when an abundant helium-3 supply (plausibly lunar, around the mid-2030s) brings the fuel price down. Publishing an LCOE that assumed cheap helium-3 already existed would be dishonest, so the record does not.
The near-term revenue engine is the other machine. The HYPERION breeder anchors the near-term commercial case on its frozen structure at central availability — and it is what produces the helium-3 that later unlocks the burner. See the breeder-first strategy.