- Google announces 20-year plan to help Constellation upgrade its existing nuclear plants
- The company previously promised to "[bring] net-new energy to the grid"
- It has now enabled over 1.5GW of new nuclear energy across the US
Google has signed a major long-term partnership with Constellation Energy designed to boost energy generation for the PJM Interconnection – a grid network that covers 13 states and an estimated 67 million US citizens.
The expansion, of course, comes amid the company's rising energy consumption as it continues to expand its AI data centers to keep up with customer demand.
A 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) is set to support 890MW of new nuclear generating capacity, but with one key detail – six existing sites will increase their output, rather than this being Google funding the development of new nuclear facilities.
Google signs 20-year nuclear deal to generate 890MW of additional energy
Global Head of Data Center Energy Amanda Peterson Corio explained that, with this announcement, the company has now enabled over 1.5 GW of new nuclear capacity for the US energy system. In other words, the latest development could mark around a 2.5-3x increase over its earlier total, which would have been around 610MW (based on the 1.5GW total).
Google says the first uprated nuclear plant is expected to go live in 2028, with the full 890MW of additional power set to be delivered by the end of 2032.
Constellation said it expects to invest more than $4.3 billion into the program – Google didn't share the financial details of its end of the deal, but Corio did emphasize the positive impact on jobs, particularly around temporary construction-related roles.
"Preserving and expanding the output of the existing nuclear fleet and developing new clean generation is critical to meeting our nation's growing energy needs," Constellation CEO Joe Dominguez explained.
Corio had previously promised to pay for the company's power and "any new infrastructure costs directly driven by [its] growth," including boosting "grid resilience" and "bringing net-new energy to the grid."
So while the 890MW isn't technically destined exclusively for Google's own data centers, it will ultimately support those expansions while helping to keep citizens' bills lower with more abundant energy supply.
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