Meta has agreed to buy production at Illinois nuclear power plants for two decades, marking its first deal as it tries to support electricity to power its AI efforts and U.S. data centers.
The social media group said Tuesday it had signed a deal with Constellation Energy, the largest conventional nuclear reactor operator in the United States, to purchase output from the Clinton Clean Energy Center for 20 years from June 2027. The agreement will help extend the life of the facility to the state’s expiration deadline.
Big tech companies are competing to ensure large amounts of electricity can meet the soaring demand of the AI boom, prompting these companies (and utilities) to consider power generation options other than traditional fossil fuels as well.
The deal comes as Crown CEO Mark Zuckerberg invested billions of dollars to develop AI models and products for the platform to become a “AI leader.”
Meta rivals Amazon, Google and Microsoft recently struck a deal with nuclear power plant operators, but plans for social platforms disrupted similar deals last year for environmental and regulatory challenges. Zuckerberg told staff that a rare species of bee was found next to a factory where the potential data center was to be built, complicating the project.
Last September, the Constellation announced that it would reopen its Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania after a 20-year power deal with Microsoft. One of the units of the plant closed in 1979 after partial collapse caused the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history. In the case of the meta, Clinton is already in operation.
To further boost the prospects of the U.S. nuclear sector, Donald Trump signed an executive order last month to build reactors in a fast track and help fund upgrades to existing reactors so that by 2050, the country's atomic energy capacity quartet.
Earlier this year, the Constellation announced nearly $27 billion deal to buy rival Calpine, with the surge in electricity demand spurred by AI Boom, the country has two of the largest generator combinations.
Financial details of the Clinton transaction were not disclosed. The agreement with META will enable the agreement to reapply for federal will and continue to operate at the factory in the center of the state, about 250 kilometers southwest of Chicago, the Constellation said in a statement.
Constellation also said the partnership will increase Clinton's clean energy output by 30 megawatts and retain 1,100 "high-paying local jobs" and generate $13.5 million in annual revenue.
The Clinton lost plant is scheduled to close in 2017, but the plant continues until mid-2027 due to the Illinois legislature’s enactment. Meta's participation will be received where government subsidies expire, thereby operating the facility without supporting taxpayers.
Constellation CEO Joe Dominguez said the company was “proud” in working with Meta because “they found supporting the re-enhancing and expansion of existing plants to be just as powerful as finding new energy sources.”
Shortly after the opening bell on Wall Street on Tuesday, zodiac stocks rose about 6%, while Meta rose 0.1%.
Other nuclear stocks are news of the Constellation partnership. Shares of Oklo, a small modular reactor developer backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, rose 9%. Reactor designer Nuscale Power rose 8%. Nuclear fuel company Centrus Energy grew 7.5%.