Google signed a 20-year deal to add 890 megawatts to 11 Constellation nuclear reactors

The cheapest reactor is one you already own

The cheapest reactor in America is an old reactor with new turbines, and Google just bought the next 890 megawatts of it. Today's 20-year power purchase agreement↗ funds new turbines, steam generators and digital controls at 11 Constellation nuclear units across Illinois, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, capacity the companies describe as entirely new and equal to a large conventional reactor. ¹

Revenue signed before the steel is cut

Constellation puts more than $4.3 billion into the work, sustaining roughly 4,400 jobs and creating about 7,200 construction jobs, with the first uprate due by 2028; a separate 15-year agreement contracts 2,700 megawatts of existing fleet output besides. ¹ A report ahead of the announcement put Google's payment at $1 billion or more over the deal's life ³, and Constellation shares traded about 5 percent higher premarket. ⁶ It is the second hyperscaler contract in six days. On September 30, Amazon signed for 690 megawatts at Calvert Cliffs in Maryland↗, including a 190-megawatt uprate due online between 2030 and 2032, unlocking more than $3 billion of investment and Amazon's first uprate funding. ²⁷ Chief executive Joe Dominguez calls it a model for how technology companies and the energy industry can develop the digital economy together. ¹

Ratepayer-neutral, says the seller

Google frames the structure as a direct answer to PJM's "Bring Your Own Power" proposal and the White House Ratepayer Protection Pledge: new supply "without passing on costs to residential customers." ¹ That is the seller's claim, and nothing in the record tests it. The grid underneath has been clearing at its ceiling; PJM's two most recent capacity auctions settled at the regulator-approved cap above $329 per megawatt-day↗ ⁴, and consultants to Illinois regulators say the state's grid must double to 120 gigawatts by 2045, mostly for data centers. ⁵ About $2 billion of the uprate money lands at Byron, Braidwood, LaSalle and Quad Cities↗. ⁵

Two ways to fund the same megawatt

The rival model arrived a day earlier. The Energy Department's financing office offered Vistra a conditional loan of up to $4.2 billion to uprate Beaver Valley, Davis-Besse and Perry: 433 new megawatts arriving between 2031 and 2034, carried on the federal balance sheet, with Meta already contracted for that output plus 2,176 megawatts of existing generation. ⁴ Washington is not idle; the same office closed a $26.5 billion package for Southern Co. that includes uprates. ⁴ The difference is sequence. Constellation's revenue is contracted before construction starts, and its first new megawatt is due three years before Perry's.

Watch the 2028 date

If the first Google-funded uprate slips past 2028, the contracted-annuity story and the ratepayer argument get repriced together, because PJM keeps clearing at the cap until the megawatts arrive. ¹⁴ The reactors were already running. The first uprate is due by 2028, and everything priced this morning rests on that date holding.