Microsoft plans to take up 100 percent of a revived Three Mile Island nuclear power plant to fuel its AI data center ambitions.
Should regulators approve the project, owner Constellation hopes to open the 837MW Pennsylvania facility in 2028. 100 percent of the power will go to Microsoft, to match the power used by its data centers in the state as well as Chicago, Virginia, and Ohio.
The PPA will last 20 years, significantly longer than Microsoft's traditional solar and wind PPAs. Constellation said that the power use was equivalent to that of 800,000 US households.
"This agreement is a major milestone in Microsoft's efforts to help decarbonize the grid in support of our commitment to become carbon negative," Bobby Hollis, VP of Energy at Microsoft, said.
"Microsoft continues to collaborate with energy providers to develop carbon-free energy sources to help meet the grids' capacity and reliability needs."
While the terms of the PPA were not revealed, Constellation will invest $1.6 billion to restart the dormant reactor, which was shut down in 2019 because it was too expensive.
The Unit 1 reactor was not impacted by the infamous Three Mile Island accident, when Unit 2 suffered a partial nuclear meltdown in the worst nuclear power accident in US history back in 1979. That site is still being decommissioned by owner Energy Solutions.
Constellation purchased Unit 1 in 1999, and will pursue a license renewal that will extend plant operations to at least 2054. The newly-named Crane Clean Energy Center is expected to be online in 2028.
“Powering industries critical to our nation’s global economic and technological competitiveness, including data centers, requires an abundance of energy that is carbon-free and reliable every hour of every day, and nuclear plants are the only energy sources that can consistently deliver on that promise,” said Joe Dominguez, president and CEO, Constellation.
“Before it was prematurely shuttered due to poor economics, this plant was among the safest and most reliable nuclear plants on the grid, and we look forward to bringing it back with a new name and a renewed mission to serve as an economic engine for Pennsylvania. We are especially honored to name this new plant after our former CEO Chris Crane, who was a fierce advocate for our business, devoting his entire career to the safe, reliable operation of our nation’s nuclear fleet, and we will continue that legacy at the Crane Clean Energy Center.”
Over the past 12 months, Microsoft has hired Archie Manoharan as director of nuclear technologies, joining from micro modular reactor company Ultra Safe Nuclear, and Erin Henderson as head of nuclear development acceleration, joining from the Tennessee Valley Authority.
It has procured Clean Energy Credits (CECs) from Canadian energy firm Ontario Power Generation (OPG), and signed a 24/7 nuclear power deal with Constellation for its Boydton data center.
This week, Microsoft announced that it would help fund a $30bn BlackRock effort to invest in AI infrastructure, including both data centers and power. Earlier this year, Microsoft announced a $10bn, 10GW deal with Brookfield Asset Management to support the energy infrastructure needed for AI.
Back in March, Rival AWS acquired Talen Energy’s data center campus next to the Susquehanna Steam Electric Station nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania for $650 million. At the time, it was said to be able to support up to 960MW. In May, AWS was granted a 1,600-acre rezoning request to develop 15 data center buildings.
Earlier today, DCD exclusively reported that the cloud company was hiring for a nuclear and small modular reactor (SMR) team lead.
Oracle also plans to build a 1GW data center campus backed by three SMRs, but has yet to provide any further details.
