Meta to buy nuclear power for AI data centers
Meta has signed a deal to buy power from a nuclear power plant in Illinois owned by Constellation Energy Corp, the largest nuclear power operator in the United States. The deal, along with a surge in demand for electricity driven by artificial intelligence, could spur construction of a new reactor at the facility.
The companies signed a 20-year agreement under which Meta will purchase electricity from the Clinton Clean Energy Center nuclear power plant in Clinton starting in June 2027, when the state subsidy expires. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it is known that Constellation will invest in increasing production at the nuclear power plant and consider building another reactor, for which it already has federal approval.
The Meta deal is a significant step for the Clinton plant, which has a capacity of more than 1,110 megawatts, enough to power about 800,000 homes. The plant's previous owner, Exelon Corp., was on the verge of closing the plant in 2017 due to stiff competition from cheaper natural gas and renewable energy sources, but that changed after Illinois approved a 10-year subsidy.
Urvi Pareha, Meta’s head of energy, says the contract is Meta’s largest energy deal ever. The company has become more interested in nuclear power to power its operations, and in December it announced it was seeking proposals for reactors up to 4 gigawatts, to which it received more than 50 responses, including one from Constellation.
Nuclear power has become particularly interesting for many companies with the development of artificial intelligence, which requires large capacities to train new models. In February, France announced the allocation of 1 gigawatt of nuclear power for AI, and AWS, a subsidiary of Amazon, plans to invest more than $500 million in nuclear power.
However, Constellation signed a deal with Microsoft last year to rehabilitate the defunct Three Mile Island nuclear power plant for $1.6 billion. If approved by regulators, the company will receive rights to 100% of the electricity generated for its data centers.