Energy company Constellation Energy is restarting the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant is planningwith the goal of the facility helping to serve Microsoft’s huge energy needs as the tech giant makes data center investments in the age of generative artificial intelligence. Constellation is investing $1.6 billion to restart the plant by 2028, including nuclear fuel.
According to the energy company, which has more than two million customers in the continental United States, the reactor in Pennsylvania could be operational again in 2028 after receiving the necessary approvals from the local Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The company plans to extend the operation of the power plant until at least 2054, and to continue to exist under the name Crane Clean Energy Center in the future.
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Microsoft will buy electricity from the plant under a 20-year agreement to match the energy consumed by the data centers with carbon-free energy. According to Joe Dominguez, CEO of Constellation, the partnership symbolizes the rebirth of nuclear energy as a clean and reliable energy source, and it is also worth highlighting that a similar deal has not yet been concluded between an energy industry and a technology company.
Unit 1 of the nuclear reactor was shut down in 2019 after nuclear power did not fare well in economic competition with cheap natural gas and renewable energy sources. The building exists separately from the reactor that partially melted down in 1979 in the worst nuclear accident in US history. This will make Three Mile Island the second nuclear power plant to restart operations in US history, as it may be preceded by the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant in Michigan, which is expected to restart operations in late 2025.
Analysts expect data center electricity demand to soar in the coming decades, with various AI technologies threatening to strain the power grid. Although estimates vary, Goldman Sachs predicts that data centers will consume 8% of total US electricity demand by 2030, up from 3% today.
Source: www.hwsw.hu
