Google and Amazon locked up 20 years of Constellation nuclear; a $5 billion loan covers 80% at eight plants

AI's appetite for firm power is being answered the old-fashioned way, with two-decade contracts. Google has signed one with Constellation Energy▲+4.31% — Constellation Energy, up 4.31 percent today, the largest US nuclear operator, for new output from 11 of its reactors, and Amazon has signed another at Calvert Cliffs in Maryland ¹².

On October 27, 2026, the Energy Department added a conditional loan of up to $5 billion toward the plant upgrades↗ behind those deals ³. The loan reaches at most 80% of eligible project cost, and only at eight plants ³. Everything above it is Constellation's own money, and third-quarter results before the bell on November 9 are the first look at how it gets paid ⁹.

The buyers moved before Washington did

PJM, the grid serving the Mid-Atlantic and parts of the Midwest, came up 6.8 gigawatts short of its reliability target in a September auction↗, and its market monitor named data centers as the biggest driver ⁴. That scarcity is why the buyers signed first. Google's▲+0.90% — Google, up 0.90 percent today agreement represents more than $4.3 billion of Constellation investment↗, with the first uprate due in 2028 ¹.

Amazon's▲+0.46% — Amazon, up 0.46 percent today covers 690 megawatts at Calvert Cliffs↗ ². About 190 megawatts of that is new capacity, arriving by 2032 ². An uprate replaces turbines, steam generators and control systems at plants already built and connected, which is how capacity arrives in years rather than the decade a new reactor takes ⁴.

The loan stops at eight plants, and at 80% of cost

The commitment names eight plants and remains conditional on due diligence, definitive financing documents and licensing at each unit ³⁵. Salem in New Jersey is not on the list. On November 5, 2026, its operator PSEG▼−0.42% — PSEG, down 0.42 percent today announced a 200-megawatt uprate↗ there and said it will take about 112 megawatts itself; Constellation owns 43% of that plant, outside the loan's reach ⁵⁶.

When the Google deal was signed, Constellation chief executive Joe Dominguez called it "funded by private entities" ¹. Federal debt now sits beneath the same projects, at terms Dominguez frames as pairing private demand with smart financing ³. No household bill in three states pays for the contracts; the loan is taxpayer-backed ⁴.

The balance sheet is the next bottleneck

Cash ended June at about $1 billion↗, down sharply from year-end ⁷. The first half combined the highest quarterly capital spending in at least three years with roughly $2 billion of share buybacks ⁷⁸. Asset sales soften that: a Texas gas plant closed in October↗, and a 4,400-megawatt package in PJM follows by year-end ⁸.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission expects a dozen uprate applications from Constellation through 2030, so licensing and execution, not demand, now set the pace ⁵. Options traders are pricing a 14% move into Monday's report, with 1.9 puts for every call ⁹.

The demand side of the AI power boom is solved, and that is genuinely good news for anyone building on these models. What remains is slow, debt-heavy engineering, and whoever delivers those megawatts is doing work the AI economy now depends on. Above the loan's cap, that work belongs to Constellation alone, and Monday is when it shows how it plans to pay for it.