Constellation Energy, the largest U.S. nuclear provider, agreed Tuesday to invest $4.3 billion to increase output at 11 nuclear plants in Illinois, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and then sell this additional power to Google over a 20-year period.
About half of Constellation’s investment, or $2 billion, will be spent at the Byron, Braidwood, LaSalle and Quad Cities plants In Illinois, according to Paul Adams, a Constellation spokesman.
Tuesday’s agreement comes as Google and other artificial intelligence companies are building data centers at record rates, and as rising electricity rates driven by this construction boom are helping spark a growing political backlash.
Google will fully pay for the additions in northern Illinois, a Constellation spokesperson wrote in an email to the Tribune.
“No costs from the deal will go to Illinois customers, and in fact, the additional supply resulting from Google’s investment will exert downward pressure on energy rates for Illinois residents,” the spokesperson wrote.
On Sept. 24, consultants for the Illinois Power Agency and other state regulators said the installed capacity of the state’s electricity grid will need to double by 2045 to 120 gigawatts, mainly to support data center growth.
Tuesday’s agreement will boost output at the 11 Constellation nuclear plants by 890 megawatts, or about the size of a typical nuclear reactor in the U.S.
The announcement represents “responsible growth,” Pat Devaney, secretary treasurer of Illinois AFL-CIO, said in a statement to the Tribune. The federation represents almost 900,000 workers in Illinois, according to its website.
“Our members are ready to bring roughly 450 megawatts of new clean power online — the equivalent of two small modular reactors — at no cost to Illinois ratepayers,” Devaney said in the statement. “It is proof positive that Illinois can invest in clean energy and create good-paying union jobs without passing on the costs.”
Specifically, the additional energy will be distributed through PJM Interconnection, a regional electricity grid that serves 13 states, including northern Illinois, plus the District of Columbia.
“Our agreement with Constellation to fund nuclear reactor uprates will strengthen the PJM grid, which serves 67 million people, all while protecting energy affordability and supporting local union jobs,” said Amanda Peterson Corio, global head of energy and power at Google, in the statement.
The office of Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker did not respond to a request for comment.
Last year, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced a 20-year stipend for a Constellation Energy nuclear plant in Clinton, a rural community 25 miles south of Bloomington. He’s helping to plan a second and perhaps even a third reactor for the site and may help foot the bill.
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Google and Constellation also have agreed on a strategic framework to evaluate opportunities to develop new clean generation and related services across the United States to support Google’s growth.
In a separate agreement, Constellation has agreed to supply Google with 2,700 megawatts of power over a 15-year period through the PJM system.
While it’s good to see investment in more energy sources, Jennifer Walling, CEO of the Illinois Environmental Council, said she’s concerned about Google supporting nuclear and methane instead of renewable sources like wind and solar.
The tech company last year announced it had agreed to purchase the majority of power expected to be produced at a natural gas plant being built at an ADM site in Decatur, according to the city’s website.
The Illinois Environmental Council is in general opposed to nuclear power, although Walling said it has supported packages that have included both when the renewable investments outweigh the nuclear investments.
“I think that nuclear power is carbon free, but we don’t consider it clean, because of the radioactive waste that will last for thousands of years and how you mine that, and the water usage,” she said.
Her organization backs the POWER Act, introduced in February by state Sen. Ram Villivalam and state Rep. Robyn Gabel. The legislation, supported by Pritzker, would incentivize data centers to draw from local renewable energy sources and batteries while adding transparency requirements.
Decision-makers are seeing more pressure around data centers than any other issue Walling said she has worked on.
“There are communities saying ‘yes,’ there are communities saying ‘no,’ but I don’t know that I can predict what they’re going to do based on what I know about any community,” Walling said.
John Lippert is a freelancer.