Google has contracted for 3,590 megawatts of power from Constellation Energy in the largest power grid in the United States, with new nuclear energy accounting for roughly a quarter of that supply, reported on October 6.
The $4.3 Billion Constellation Energy Investment
The deal unlocks more than $4.3 billion of new capital investment by Constellation Energy. This funding targets capacity expansions across several of the power company’s nuclear reactors situated throughout the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions. Major technology companies are racing to secure massive blocks of electricity supplies to power data centers across the United States. They are striking unprecedented deals with traditional power companies to bypass grid bottlenecks. Constellation previously revealed a contract during the past two years to bring its Three Mile Island reactor back online in Pennsylvania in order to supply Microsoft data centers. Meanwhile, Google contracted to restart NextEra Energy’s nuclear power plant in Iowa.
Google Secures Long-Term Nuclear Power from Constellation
Under this most recent pact, Google secured a 20-year power purchase agreement for 890 megawatts of electricity sourced from a variety of nuclear power plants operated by Constellation. These facilities will undergo extensive engineering upgrades to extract higher output from existing reactors. Electricity generation from the first of these upgraded plants is expected to hit the grid in 2028. Google also signed a long-term supply agreement for an additional 2,700 megawatts of power from Constellation within the PJM Interconnection footprint. According to Google, that particular block of power is not tied to a specific generation source. Instead, it serves as long-term revenue certainty for Constellation’s operating plants. Maryland-based Constellation operates as the largest US nuclear power plant operator while also maintaining a major fleet of natural-gas-fired power plants.
The PJM Interconnection Bring Your Own Power Mandate
The 11 nuclear units scheduled for capacity upgrades under the agreement sit in Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. About half of Constellation’s investment, roughly $2 billion, will be directed toward plants in Illinois, including the Byron, Braidwood, LaSalle, and Quad Cities facilities. These units all operate within the geographic footprint of PJM Interconnection, the largest US electric grid spanning 13 states. PJM management has proposed requiring data center customers connected to its grid to either bring their own power generation sources or face remote disconnection during periods of peak demand. Google and Constellation confirmed that their agreement directly responds to this emerging “bring your own power” policy proposal.
“We’re committed to meeting our growth responsibly by actively investing in clean, reliable power that brings new capacity to our nation’s grids,” said Amanda Peterson Corio, Google’s global head of energy and power, in a statement.
