Google’s power-hungry data centers crave nuclear energy

Google and Constellation announced a 20-year power purchase agreement designed to underwrite efficiency upgrades at existing nuclear plants across six sites in Illinois, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Constellation said the contract helps guarantee the revenue needed to support more than $4.3 billion in new investment to modernize equipment at 11 reactors across those sites. Together the firms expect the retrofit work to add about 890 MW of nuclear output over the next five years, a quantity Constellation and Google compare to the output of a large new reactor or several small modular reactors. Each of the six sites is connected to the PJM Interconnection grid, which serves 13 states and Washington, D.C., and includes major data-center hubs such as Loudoun County, Virginia. The announcement arrives as PJM confronts growing power demand from AI and hyperscale data centers. An independent market monitor filed a complaint with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last year warning that PJM had planned to permit large data-center connections it could not reliably serve, raising blackout risks. Federal and state officials earlier urged PJM to arrange auctions to secure long-term supply, and last week PJM postponed an emergency auction after FERC directed revisions to strengthen protections against cost shifts to other customers. Google also signed a separate, larger 15-year supply agreement with Constellation to provide revenue support for Constellation’s other PJM plants regardless of fuel type; that second deal is reported at about 2,700 MW. Constellation’s generation mix last year was roughly 70% nuclear, 8% renewables and 22% gas and oil. Google reported an 18% increase in carbon emissions and a 37% rise in electricity demand last year in its sustainability report, underscoring why the company is seeking new long-term supply arrangements.