By Brian Martucci | Utility Dive
Dive Brief:
- Constellation Energy plans to restart the 835-MW Three Mile Island Unit 1 nuclear generating station in Pennsylvania in 2028, the company said Friday.
- Microsoft will purchase energy from the reactivated power plant over 20 years to match power consumed by its data centers in the PJM Interconnection, Constellation said in a news release. But there are no plans to colocate a Microsoft data center at the plant, according to a Constellation spokesperson.
- “This agreement is a major milestone in Microsoft’s efforts to help decarbonize the grid in support of our commitment to become carbon negative [and] Microsoft continues to collaborate with energy providers to develop carbon-free energy sources to help meet the grid’s capacity and reliability needs,” Microsoft Vice President of Energy Bobby Hollis said in a statement.
“Arizona and the rest of the country are suffering from extreme shortages in the resources necessary to power our future that is increasingly reliant on electricity. This deal is a great example of how the private sector and free market can help solve these problems without relying on government backed monopoly utilities to do it and socialize the costs. Here, an energy provider and a private company are restarting a nuclear plant to provide the energy needed for Microsoft to develop without the need for government intervention or a utility to spread the costs over its ratepayers.”
– Court Rich, Rose Law Group co-founder and director of the firm’s renewable energy & utility infrastructure department
