Google and Constellation Strike 890 MW Nuclear Power Deal

Google and Constellation Energy said Tuesday they have signed a 20-year agreement that will fund uprates adding 890 MW of new nuclear capacity to the PJM grid, the latest in a string of deals tying hyperscale tech companies directly to US nuclear plants as AI data center demand strains the grid.

Under the agreement, Constellation will invest more than $4.3 billion to upgrade equipment at 11 of its nuclear units, located at roughly half a dozen sites in Illinois, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, lifting their combined thermal and electrical efficiency. The companies said output from the first upgraded unit is expected in 2028, with the remaining uprates phased in afterward. Constellation shares rose about 14% in morning trading after the announcement.

Uprates, not new reactors

The deal does not add new reactors to the grid. Instead, it pays for incremental efficiency and equipment upgrades — new turbine components, generator rewinds and instrumentation — at plants that are already operating, a cheaper and faster way to add firm nuclear output than building new capacity. Constellation said the work would sustain roughly 4,400 existing jobs at the affected sites and create about 7,200 construction jobs during the build-out.

“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 chief executive Joe Dominguez said in a statement. In a joint statement, the companies said pairing the nuclear investment “with advanced Google technologies” was intended to support the growth of AI and digital infrastructure without shifting costs onto other PJM customers — language the companies tied to the White House’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge, an administration initiative meant to keep data-center power demand from raising household electricity bills.

A second, separate supply deal

Alongside the uprate agreement, Google and Constellation signed a 15-year energy supply contract covering 2,700 MW from Constellation’s existing PJM fleet. Unlike the uprate deal, this portion does not create new generation; it is a long-term offtake arrangement giving Google access to power already on the grid. Financial terms of that contract were not disclosed.

The latest in a run of hyperscaler-nuclear deals

The agreement extends a pattern Constellation has built over the past year, signing nuclear-focused power deals with Microsoft — tied to the restart of Three Mile Island’s Unit 1 — and with Meta, before agreeing with Amazon on September 30 to a 20-year, 690 MW deal that unlocked $3 billion to expand the Calvert Cliffs plant in Maryland. With Google now added, Constellation has struck large, multiyear nuclear agreements with four of the biggest cloud and AI providers in roughly 12 months.

The timing also lines up with a broader push to keep existing reactors running longer and harder rather than wait years for new ones. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission completed its environmental review for the Three Mile Island Unit 1 restart last month, and on the same day as the Google announcement, the Department of Energy offered rival generator Vistra a conditional $4.2 billion loan to fund uprates at three of its own PJM nuclear plants — a separate deal covering different reactors but the same underlying driver: data-center operators and the federal government both betting that squeezing more megawatts out of the existing US reactor fleet is the fastest way to meet AI-driven demand growth.

What’s still unclear

Neither company named the 11 units involved or disclosed how the 890 MW will be split among them, and the uprate timeline beyond “first output in 2028” has not been detailed plant by plant. Constellation has not said whether the agreement affects relicensing plans for any of the sites involved, something it has pursued at Calvert Cliffs as part of its deal with Amazon.

Sources

• Google and Constellation Energy, “Google and Constellation Announce Landmark Agreement to Bring 890 MW of New Nuclear Capacity to PJM Grid,” joint press release, October 6, 2026 — deal structure, capacity, investment figure, jobs, quotes.
• Utility Dive, “Constellation-Google deal will bring $4.3B investment, 890 MW of new nuclear to PJM,” October 6, 2026 — unit locations, stock reaction, supply-agreement terms.

Illustrative image. Photo: Christian David, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons — source