Social media giant’s move follows other big tech companies signing agreements with power companies
Constellation and social networking company Meta have signed an agreement that will support the continued operation of the Clinton nuclear power station in Illinois for another 20 years.
Baltimore, Maryland-based Constellation said the power purchase agreement (PPA) will support Meta’s clean energy goals and operations in the region with 1,121 MW of nuclear energy from Clinton’s single boiling water reactor unit.
The deal will allow Constellation to increase Clinton’s output by 30 MW through plant uprates.
Clinton was scheduled for premature closure in 2017 after years of financial losses, despite being one of the best performing nuclear plants of a total of 11 units in Illinois.
Its retirement was prevented by enactment in 2016 of Illinois’ Future Energy Jobs Act, which established a zero-emission credit programme that provides financial support to the plant until mid-2027.
Constellation’s agreement with Meta – the US multinational technology company that owns and operates several prominent social media platforms including Facebook and Instagram – essentially replaces the zero-emission credit programme and ensures long-term operations of the plant without ratepayer support.
According to Constellation, the PPA will enable Clinton to continue to flow power onto the local grid, providing grid reliability and low-cost power to the region for decades to come.
Meta is buying Clinton’s nuclear-generated electricity as part of its commitment to match 100% of its electricity use with clean and renewable energy.
Clinton began commercial operation in 1987 and last year Constellation applied with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission to renew its licence until 2047.
Other Big Tech Companies Back Nuclear
Meta’s deal with Constellation is the company’s first with a nuclear power plant. Other large tech companies are looking to secure electricity as US power demand rises significantly in part due to the needs of artificial intelligence and data centres.
Last year Google said it will back the construction of seven small modular reactors (SMRs) from Kairos Power, becoming the first tech company to commission new nuclear power plants to provide low-carbon electricity for its energy-hungry data centres.
Also last year, Microsoft announced that it would commit to buying 20 years’ supply of electricity from the mothballed Three Mile Island nuclear power plant – now renamed Crane – if Constellation restarted one of the two plants at the Pennsylvania site.
In March, Amazon Web Services, a subsidiary of the online retail giant founded by Jeff Bezos, acquired US power producer Talen Energy’s Cumulus data centre campus at the Susquehanna nuclear power station in Pennsylvania.
Urvi Parekh, head of global energy at Meta, said: “One of the things that we hear very acutely from utilities is they want to have certainty that power plants operating today will continue to operate.”
Joe Dominguez, chief executive of Constellation, said: “We’re definitely having conversations with other clients, not just in Illinois, but really across the country, to step in and do what Meta has done, which is essentially give us a backstop so that we could make the investments needed to relicense these assets and keep them operating.”
Constellation has a fleet of 21 nuclear power plants at 15 sites. The 15 sites are Braidwood, Byron, Calvert Cliffs, Clinton, Crane (formerly Three Mile Island), Dresden, FitzPatrick, LaSalle, Limerick, Nine Mile Point, Peach Bottom, Quad Cities, Ginna, Salem and South Texas.
