Meta Boosts Nuclear Agreements, Adds Vistra, TerraPower, Oklo

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Written by Paul Wiseman for IIR News Intelligence (Sugar Land Texas)

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Summary

Working to provide power to its increasing lineup of data centers, Facebook's parent company, Meta Platforms, announced three new agreements to fund generation facilities. The total involved will be up to 6.6 gigawatts of power, new and existing.

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Powerful Alliances

On Friday, Facebook parent company Meta Platforms (Menlo Park, California) announced agreements with grid power technology companies that it says will extend and expand the operation of three nuclear power plants and help fund development of new nuclear technology.

One of the Meta data centers receiving power will be the Promethius AI superclusters in New Albany, Ohio. Expected to be online sometime this year, its power consumption will be 1 gigawatt (GW) or greater. Subscribers to Industrial Info's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) Industrial Manufacturing Project Database can learn more by viewing the related project reports for Prometheus project.

A significant portion of the power supply agreed to involves still-in-development technology that may not provide power for 10 years or more.

Agreement Overviews

• Vistra Energy (Irving, Texas): Agreed 20-year power purchase agreements to sell Meta the entire 2,176-megawatt (MW) capacity of its Perry and Davis-Besse nuclear power plants in Ohio. And after Vistra uprates those plants as well as the Beaver Valley nuclear plant in Pennsylvania by 433 MW overall, Meta will buy all of that power as well. Subscribers to Industrial Info's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) Plant Database can click here for the plant profiles.
  
  Meta's purchases under the agreements will begin in late 2026, with additional capacity added to the grid through 2034, when the full 2,609 MW of power will be online.
  
  "As recently as 2020, before Vistra owned Perry, Davis-Besse and Beaver Valley, these plants were on a path to retirement," said Stacey Doré, Chief Strategy & Sustainability Officer of Vistra. The company acquired the plants in 2023.


• TerraPower (Bellevue, Washington): With Meta's help, the company will develop eight of its Natrium advanced nuclear plants, with a combined rating of 2.8 GW. Another 1.2 GW of storage will be available from the reactor's built-in molten salt energy storage system.
  
  Each Natrium unit is a 345 MW sodium fast reactor coupled with an energy storage system.
  
  TerraPower expects delivery of initial units as early as 2032.
  
  The company received initial funding for Natrium about five years ago and is building its first plant in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP), with a projected completion of 2034. Subscribers to Industrial Info's GMI Project Database can click here for more details on the project.
  
  
• Oklo Incorporated (Santa Clara, California) will employ Meta funding, including power prepayments, to develop a 1.2-GW power campus on 206 acres of land owned by the company in Pike County, Ohio.
  
  The company expects to begin pre-construction and site characterization in 2026, with the first phase targeted to come online as early as 2030. It then plans to expand the facility incrementally to deliver up to the full target of 1.2 GW by 2034.
  
  For both Oklo and TerraPower, Industrial Info will continue researching details of these projects as they become available through its worldwide research team.

Data Centers & Grid Concerns

Of the Meta agreements, Vistra and Oklo are on PJM Interconnection, while a site for the Terra Power project has not been announced.

The PJM location is significant because many end users--residents and businesses--are increasingly worried about rising electricity costs due to the almost panic-driven expansion of the grid. Looking to deflect those fears, Meta's news release stated that it pays full price for its electricity, and that these agreements support the grid at large.

Utility Dive on January 7 reported that, "Data center load accounted for $6.5 billion, or 40%, of the $16.4 billion in costs from the PJM Interconnection's December capacity auction, according to the grid operator's independent market monitor." It added that about $6.2 billion is for yet-unbuilt data centers, although they could be online by the start of PJM's 2028-2028 delivery year that starts June 1, 2027.

The publication added that data center load forecasts for expanding data center demand have helped push the last three PJM capacity auctions to record price levels, leading to political backlash in some member states.

The market monitor's report highlights how data center load forecasts have affected PJM's last three capacity auctions, which set price records and sparked political backlash in some states.

In Virginia and Pennsylvania, the governor of each has threatened to pull out of PJM, and other governors called for increased member input. "This is a crisis of not having enough power, and it is a crisis in confidence," said Virginia's Glenn Youngkin, a Republican. "It's this crisis that demands real reform, real reform immediately--and at the top of the list is that states must have a real say."

And Pennsylvania's Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said, "If PJM refuses to change, we will be forced to go in a different direction."

By the Numbers

• 3 Power technology companies in financial agreements for new power with Meta
• 6.6 GW: Maximum amount of power to be available if and when all projects are fully operational
• 8 or more years before some projects will be online

Key Takeaways
While global data companies like Meta are announcing multimillion-dollar investments in technology and generation, states like many of those in the PJM region hosting many of these projects are pushing back, fearing higher utility prices.

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About IIR News Intelligence
IIR News Intelliegence is a trusted source of news for the industrial process and energy markets, powered by Industrial Info Resource's Global Market Intelligence (GMI).

About Industrial Info Resources
Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of industrial market intelligence. Since 1983, IIR has provided comprehensive research, news and analysis on the industrial process, manufacturing and energy related industries. IIR's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) helps companies identify and pursue trends across multiple markets with access to real, qualified and validated plant and project opportunities. Across the world, IIR is tracking over 250,000 current and future projects worth $30.2 Trillion (USD).