Google partners with NextEra to restore closed nuclear plant

Google, in collaboration with NextEra Energy, will revive the Duane Arnold Energy Center, a nuclear power plant in Iowa that had closed in 2020.

For the past year, NextEra had been looking for a partner to reopen the nuclear reactor, and it found one in Google, which has been steadily adding zero-carbon energy sources to fuel its growing data center fleet.

Neither company disclosed the financial terms of the deal for reviving the Iowa reactor.

The nuclear power plant shut down in 2020 after a major storm system damaged a part of the secondary containment system that would thwart the release of radioactive gases. The reactor was originally designed to yield 601 megawatts of electricity, and it is expected that after its repair, the power plant will generate an additional 14 megawatts.

NextEra aims to recommission the facility by 2029. Google has committed to purchasing most of its power for a quarter-century, with the remaining power going to the Central Iowa Power Cooperative under similar terms. While the Central Iowa Power Cooperative currently owns a 20% stake in the Duane Arnold power plant, NextEra has secured agreements to acquire the shares from both the co-op and the other minority owner.

For tech companies and data center developers, nuclear power has been experiencing a revival as a new source of power, as electricity demand has increased after a decade-plus slumber.

The Iowa reactor isn’t the first to be revived. Last year, Microsoft partnered with Constellation Energy to restart a reactor at Three Mile Island, which had been shut down in 2019. This initiative is projected to cost $1.6 billion, and if successful, the 835-megawatt reactor is expected to be operational by 2028.

Restarting nuclear reactors offers a quicker path to increasing nuclear capacity, potentially reducing the development time by years compared to building new power plants. However, these are still multi-year endeavors, placing them in direct competition with the similarly time-intensive construction of new natural gas power plants.

In the meantime, companies like Google are also turning to solar and batteries, which can be deployed in months rather than years, dramatically reducing the time it takes to power a new data center.