Google Signs a 20-Year Deal to Fund 890 MW of Nuclear Uprates at 11 Constellation Units

Google and Constellation Energy said on October 6 that they signed a 20-year power purchase agreement to add 890 megawatts of nuclear capacity to the PJM Interconnection grid, using equipment upgrades known as uprates at 11 Constellation-owned nuclear units in Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. The companies put Constellation’s new investment at more than $4.3 billion and say the first uprate is expected to be delivered by 2028. The same announcement includes a separate 15-year energy supply agreement for another 2,700 megawatts and an expanded five-year technology alliance under which Constellation will use Google Cloud and Gemini Enterprise.

It is the largest of four recent announcements, listed below, that tie new capacity at existing nuclear plants to a technology company or to federal financing. This report sets out what the companies’ release (also posted on Google’s press corner) says, what it leaves out, and how the numbers compare with the regulator’s own estimates and with PJM’s capacity shortfall.

What the two companies announced

The announcement bundles four pieces that differ in size and length:

The release describes uprates as “modernizing and upgrading turbines, steam generators, and digital control systems at operating plants,” and says the resulting capacity is “entirely new, expanding total electricity generation available across the PJM footprint.” Google’s Amanda Peterson Corio, its global head of energy and power, said: “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.” Constellation chairman, president, and CEO Joe Dominguez said the collaboration “can serve as a model for how technology companies and the energy industry can work together to responsibly develop the digital economy and invest in our nation’s energy infrastructure in a way that delivers grid-wide benefits for all, funded by private entities.”

What the release does not say

• Price and cost split. The release gives no contract price. Corio says Google will “fund” the uprates, while the release describes the $4.3 billion as new investment “by Constellation,” and it does not explain how Google’s payments relate to that spending.
• Which units. The release counts 11 units at six sites and names none. The Register describes work at “at least 11 existing nuclear plants,” which conflates units with sites. The American Nuclear Society’s Nuclear News reports that “It has not been announced yet which Constellation-owned units are part of the PPA,” but that Constellation spokesman Paul Dempsey said the plants involved include Braidwood, Byron, LaSalle, and Quad Cities in Illinois, Limerick in Pennsylvania, and PSEG Nuclear’s Salem in New Jersey, of which ANS notes Constellation owns 43 percent.
• Timeline. The release gives a date only for the first uprate, “first uprate expected to be delivered by 2028.” The Verge reports that the companies expect the new equipment at each site to add a combined 890 MW over the next five years. For comparison, the Calvert Cliffs uprate that Constellation announced with Amazon a week earlier is scheduled to come online between 2030 and 2032.
• Regulatory approval. The release does not mention the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC says it “controls any change to a license or technical specification, and the licensee may only change these documents after NRC approves the licensee’s application for change.” ANS reports that the NRC’s list of expected uprate applications shows multiple Constellation applications over the next few years, including one for the fourth quarter of 2028, but names no plants or units, so the list cannot be used to check which unit comes first.
• The 2,700 MW. The release names no plants and no fuel types for the supply agreement. The Verge reads it as guaranteeing revenue for other existing PJM plants “regardless of fuel type,” and The Register counts a combined 3,590 MW under one 20-year agreement. The release describes two agreements with different terms and says only the 890 MW is “entirely new” capacity.

A run of uprate deals

The Google and Constellation agreement lands in the middle of a run of announcements. Since September 21, three others have tied new nuclear capacity to the same kind of equipment upgrade:

• September 21, Georgia. Georgia Power filed an agreement with the Georgia Public Service Commission under which Google would support uprates on Georgia Power’s share of the Vogtle and Hatch plants, adding around 96 MW, according to World Nuclear News. The agreement is subject to commission approval, and the subscription agreement document is redacted in its entirety in the public dockets.
• September 30, Maryland. Constellation and Amazon announced a 20-year agreement at Calvert Cliffs that includes “approximately 190 megawatts in total of new, emissions-free generating capacity coming online between 2030 and 2032,” within a 690 MW agreement, in the companies’ release.
• October 5, Pennsylvania and Ohio. The Energy Department announced a conditional commitment for a loan of about $4.2 billion to Vistra for upgrades and uprates at Beaver Valley, Davis-Besse, and Perry that it says will add 433 MW, as reported by ANS. The commitment is conditional on technical, legal, environmental, and financial requirements being met before a definitive agreement.

Together with Google’s 890 MW, the four announcements add up to about 1,609 MW (96 plus 190 plus 433 plus 890). The NRC’s power uprates page, as archived on September 9, 2025 and last updated that January, says: “Over the past 20 years, we’ve approved uprates that have given the nation’s electricity grid an additional six gigawatts, the equivalent of six large reactors.” It adds that the fleet is “interested in requesting more uprates over the coming years that could mean another two gigawatts for the grid.” By that yardstick, two weeks of announcements equal about four-fifths of the pipeline the regulator described in early 2025. These are announced projects, not NRC approvals, and the page predates all four.

The release says the initiative “directly advances the goals of the federal government’s UPRISE program.” The Energy Department’s program page says UPRISE aims to increase nuclear output by “increasing the power output of existing reactors, bringing dormant facilities back online, completing stalled projects, and advancing new reactor construction.” IIR Energy reported in March that the program targets 2.5 GW of additional capacity by 2027 and 5 GW by 2029, and that the department would “convene match-making workshops to facilitate collaborative agreements between nuclear power plant owners and end users.” A plant owner paired with a large buyer is the kind of arrangement that sentence describes.

What it does for PJM’s capacity shortfall

PJM spans 13 states and the District of Columbia, and it has been short of capacity as data center demand grows. Utility Dive reported on September 30 that PJM delayed its planned reliability backstop procurement after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission only partly approved it the day before. PJM aims to buy 6.8 GW of new capacity to cover the shortfall from its auction for the 2028/29 delivery year, though it may lower that target for new supply, and it failed to acquire enough capacity in its last two base capacity auctions. FERC Chairman Laura Swett said the commission would not be forced into accepting “a deeply flawed, eleventh-hour procurement mechanism.” A new timeline had not been set at that point.

Google’s 890 MW is about 13 percent of that 6.8 GW target. Because the release gives a date only for the first uprate, it does not say how much of the 890 MW would be in service for the 2028/29 delivery year. The release frames the agreement as a direct response to PJM’s Bring Your Own Power proposal, a model for how major power consumers can expand new supply “without state or federal mandates,” and says it aligns with the White House Ratepayer Protection Pledge, which this site covered in a report on federal data center policy.

The Verge adds context on prices and politics. It says electricity rates have climbed sharply in PJM states, citing New Jersey prices up 54 percent over five years, and it describes a January joint statement from the administration and the governors of PJM states, the statement of principles regarding PJM, as a call for an “emergency” power auction. It also notes that Google’s carbon emissions rose 18 percent last year as its electricity demand jumped 37 percent, according to the company’s latest sustainability report. Earlier reports on this site cover PJM-region politics: Virginia’s executive order on data centers and Loudoun County’s zoning loophole.

Google is also Constellation’s cloud vendor

Under the expanded technology agreement, Constellation will “build Gemini Enterprise agentic workflows directly into its core operations,” starting with three focus areas. “Speed to power” covers site selection, power flow modeling, permitting, and interconnection planning, which the release says “shortens the engineering and regulatory work on uprates, so new capacity reaches the grid sooner and at lower cost.” “Generation optimization” covers asset health monitoring and outage and turnaround management. The third area is protecting critical infrastructure by securing operational technology networks, many of which the release says are air-gapped. The release gives no cost, schedule, or performance figures for any of the three.

That makes Google both a buyer that helps fund the capacity and the cloud and AI vendor to the company building it, which the release frames as “pairing commercial investments in nuclear uprates with advanced Google technologies.” The release describes the power purchase agreement and the technology alliance as distinct agreements and does not say whether either depends on the other.

What to watch

• Which units are in the deal and how many megawatts each adds, which the release does not say.
• NRC license amendment filings and approvals for each uprate, and whether the first one arrives by 2028.
• PJM’s new backstop procurement timeline after FERC’s September 29 order.
• The Georgia Public Service Commission’s decision on the Google and Georgia Power filing.
• Contract prices, which the Constellation releases do not give and the Georgia filing redacts.