Google to bring shuttered nuclear power plant back from the dead

Google announced this week it is working with NextEra Energy to revive a nuclear power plant in Iowa that had closed in 2020.

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

Neither company disclosed financial terms of the deal.

The Duane Arnold Energy Center was shuttered after a summer derecho (major rain storm) damaged a part of the secondary containment system that would prevent the release of radioactive gases.

The power plant was originally designed to generate 601 megawatts of electricity, and if the recommissioning goes as planned, the renovated reactor will be capable of cranking out an additional 14 megawatts.

NextEra is hoping to restart the facility in 2029, and Google has agreed to buy a majority of its power for 25 years. The remainder will be sold to the Central Iowa Power Cooperative on similar terms. The organization currently holds a 20% stake in the Duane Arnold power plant, though NextEra said it has agreements to buy out both the co-op and the other minority owner.

Nuclear power has been experiencing a revival as tech companies and data center developers have been searching for new sources of power as demand for electricity has awakened after a decade-plus slumber.

The Iowa reactor isn’t the first to be brought back from the dead. Last year, Microsoft said it would work with Constellation Energy to restart a reactor at Three Mile Island that was shut down in 2019. Constellation said it expects the effort to cost $1.6 billion. If all goes as planned, the 835-megawatt reactor should come online in 2028.

Restarting reactors is considered a shortcut to bringing new nuclear capacity to the grid, likely shaving years off the time it would take to build a new power plant. But they’re still years-long projects, locking them in competition with new natural gas power plants, which also take years to develop.

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.