Google has contracted for 3,590 megawatts of power from Constellation Energy in the largest US power grid , with new nuclear energy accounting for about a quarter of that supply, the companies said on Tuesday.
Over the last two years, Constellation unveiled an agreement to restart its Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania to serve Microsoft data centres, while Google contracted to restart NextEra Energy’s nuclear power plant in Iowa. Constellation will make more than $4.3 billion of new investments in its fleet as part of the agreement, which involves adding capacity at several of the power company’s nuclear reactors in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions, the companies said. In the latest arrangement, Google entered into a 20-year power purchase agreement for 890 megawatts of electricity from multiple Constellation-owned nuclear power plants, which would be upgraded to produce more electricity from existing reactors. Google also entered into a 15-year supply agreement for an additional 2,700 megawatts of power from Constellation in the PJM power grid. The 11 nuclear units expected to be upgraded as part of the arrangement with Google are in Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, within the footprint of the largest US electric grid: PJM Interconnection.
That power is not tied to a specific generation source and serves as long-term revenue certainty for Constellation’s operating plants, Google said. “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. Google and Constellation also agreed on a strategic framework that can be replicated to develop power generation, battery storage, and a flexible power use model known as “demand response” in other parts of the US, the companies said.
