“Microsoft would commit to purchasing all the energy generated by the nuclear power plant for a minimum period of 20 years.”
Microsoft and Constellation Energy have announced an agreement to reopen the decommissioned Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania. This agreement will allow Microsoft to acquire the plant’s entire generating capacity of approximately 835 megawatts – enough to power around 800,000 homes – for a period of 20 years from 2028, subject to regulatory approval.
The electricity generated at the plant, which will be renamed the Crane Clean Energy Center, will not be earmarked for specific uses and will be connected to local interconnections, rather than going directly to Microsoft facilities. This initiative comes at a time when Microsoft and other major technology players are looking for new energy sources to power data centers that support a variety of applications, from generative AI models to cloud computing and streaming services.
A New Horizon for Nuclear Energy?
The Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania gained notoriety in 1979, when a partial meltdown at Unit 2 sparked nationwide panic about nuclear safety. Microsoft’s new agreement aims to reopen Unit 1, which was closed in 2019 due to economic difficulties, according to Constellation. If the plant reopens as planned in 2028, it will be one of the first closed nuclear plants to return to service.
Constellation has announced that it will invest $1.6 billion in revitalizing the plant, including inspections and the replacement of turbines and reactor cooling systems. Tax credits and federal subsidies from the Inflation Reduction Act will also help finance the reopening.
Last year, Microsoft posted a job opening for a new program manager, with the mission of “leading design initiatives for all aspects of nuclear energy infrastructure for global growth.” Constellation’s efforts to restart Three Mile Island were first publicized months ago.
Despite the reputation associated with the Three Mile Island meltdown and other accidents, nuclear power is responsible for significantly fewer deaths than most other forms of energy generation, especially when you consider the environmental impacts of air pollution. However, the nuclear industry faces high clean-up costs after accidents and still deals with the challenge of managing nuclear waste that needs to be stored safely for thousands of years to avoid risks to human health.
“This agreement represents an important milestone in Microsoft’s efforts to decarbonize the grid, in alignment with our commitment to become carbon negative,” said Bobby Hollis, vice president of energy at Microsoft. “We continue to collaborate with energy providers to develop carbon-free energy sources that meet the capacity and reliability needs of networks.”
News of the deal came months after Amazon acquired a $650 million data center powered by the Susquehanna nuclear plant, also in Pennsylvania.
AI powered by nuclear energy?
Across the entire sector, data centers will consume more than 350 TWh of energy in 2024, according to an analysis by Bloomberg, representing a significant increase on the approximately 100 TWh recorded in 2012. A report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that this energy demand will continue to grow over the next few years and could reach between 620 and 1,050 TWh by 2026.
The rise of generative AI models in recent years accounts for a small but growing share of data center energy demand. One study projected that AI’s total energy consumption could range between 85 and 134 TWh by 2027, a figure that comes close to the energy needs of the PC gaming industry.
“The energy industry cannot be the reason why China or Russia surpass us in AI,” Joseph Dominguez, CEO of Constellation, told The Washington Post. “This plant should never have been shut down… It will produce as much clean energy as all the renewable sources [wind and solar] built in Pennsylvania in the last 30 years.”