Amazon tapped into an rising development this week, one which’s seeing huge tech companies purchase energy from current nuclear energy vegetation.
The tech firm will energy a piece of its AWS cloud and AI servers utilizing 1.92 gigawatts of electrical energy from Talen Vitality’s Susquehanna nuclear energy plant in Pennsylvania. Amazon is the newest hyperscaler to go direct to huge nuclear operators, following on the heels of Microsoft and Meta.
Amazon’s deal was introduced Wednesday, nevertheless it’s not solely new, as a substitute modifying an current association with Talen. The previous model had Amazon constructing an information heart subsequent to the Susquehanna energy plant, siphoning electrical energy instantly from the ability with out first sending it to the grid.
That deal was killed by regulators over considerations that prospects would unfairly shoulder the burden of operating the grid. At this time, Susquehanna offers energy to the grid, that means each kilowatt-hour consists of transmission charges that assist the grid’s upkeep and growth. Amazon’s behind-the-meter association would have sidestepped these charges.
This week’s revisions shift Amazon’s energy buy settlement in entrance of the meter, that means the AWS knowledge heart shall be billed like different comparable prospects who’re grid-connected. The transmission traces shall be reconfigured in spring of 2026, Talen stated, and the deal covers vitality bought by means of 2042.
However wait, there’s extra: The 2 corporations additionally stated they are going to look to construct small modular reactors “inside Talen’s Pennsylvania footprint” and increase era at current nuclear energy vegetation.
Increasing current energy vegetation is usually a neater approach so as to add new nuclear. They would possibly embrace switching to extra extremely enriched gas to produces extra warmth, tweaking the settings to squeeze out extra energy, or renovating the generators for a much bigger bump.
Microsoft kicked off the development final 12 months when it introduced that it might work with Constellation Vitality to restart a reactor at Three Mile Island, a $1.6 billion undertaking that may generate 835 megawatts. Meta hopped aboard earlier this month, additionally with Constellation, to purchase the “clear vitality attributes” of a 1.1 gigawatt nuclear energy plant in Illinois.
Amazon and Talen’s pledge to construct new small modular reactors is an extended shot, although there, too, Amazon is in good firm with its friends. A number of startups pursuing the idea with the hopes of chopping building prices by mass producing components. Amazon has invested in an SMR startup, X-energy, which is planning so as to add 300 megawatts of nuclear producing capability within the Pacific Northwest and Virginia.
New era at current reactors and new SMRs are meant “so as to add net-new vitality to the PJM grid,” Talen stated, referring to the area’s grid operator. That final bit is probably going a bid to move off any criticism from regulators about leaving ratepayers holding the bag.
