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Nuclear, SMR & Behind-the-Meter Power Deals for AI Data Centers

Last updated: 2026-05-10

The non-grid power story is one of the most consequential, fastest-moving threads inside the AI capex buildout. Between September 2024 and early 2026, hyperscalers signed nuclear and on-site generation contracts whose combined nameplate capacity already exceeds 30 GW — more than the entire installed nuclear fleet of France's two largest operating regions, and a non-trivial fraction of total US nuclear output (~97 GW). The deals fall into four buckets: (1) reactor restarts and uprates at existing plants, where hyperscalers are funding life-extension and capacity additions in exchange for long-dated PPAs at premiums to wholesale; (2) SMR / advanced reactor offtake that is mostly aspirational through 2030 but already moving the cost-of-capital needle for developers; (3) behind-the-meter (BTM) gas, fuel cell, and hybrid packages that can be built in 12-24 months and are doing the actual lifting through 2028; and (4) next-gen geothermal / long-duration storage / hydrogen at the experimental edge.

The dataset below catalogs every announced deal we could verify, with sources. Several of these deals are not yet contracts — Meta's December 2024 RFP and Oracle's "we have permits" remark are aspirational — but they shape the supply-side conversation. The regulatory pivot point is FERC's November 1, 2024 rejection of the amended Amazon–Talen Susquehanna ISA (Docket ER24-2172), which forced the entire industry to rework BTM arrangements as grid-connected ("front of the meter") retail structures. FERC followed up on December 18, 2025 by directing PJM to overhaul its co-location rules, effectively the second shoe dropping. Meanwhile the PJM 2027/2028 Base Residual Auction (December 17, 2025) cleared at the $333.44/MW-day price cap in all four LDAs — Monitoring Analytics attributed the bulk of cleared cost to data-center forecast growth, putting roughly $21 billion of incremental capacity cost on PJM ratepayers across three auctions.

Deal Table

Nuclear: Existing reactor restarts, uprates, and PPAs

Hyperscaler / Buyer Power Provider / Asset Capacity (MW) Term (yrs) Value / $/MWh COD Status Source
Microsoft Constellation — Crane Clean Energy Center (Three Mile Island Unit 1 restart, PA) 835 20 Undisclosed; Morgan Stanley estimates ~$98/MWh (vs $50 wholesale); +$30/MWh 45Y PTC. Constellation capex ~$1.6B; DOE loan $1B 2028 (target accelerated from 2030) Restart underway; PJM fast-track interconnection; DOE loan closed Constellation press release ; Utility Dive ; DOE loan
Amazon (AWS) Talen Energy — Susquehanna nuclear, PA (original BTM ISA) 300 → 480 (amended) → terminated n/a ~$/MWh undisclosed; AEP/Exelon estimated $140M/yr transmission cost shift n/a Terminated — FERC denied amended ISA Nov 1, 2024 (Docket ER24-2172), 2-1 vote FERC order coverage – Utility Dive ; Talen statement
Amazon (AWS) Talen Energy — Susquehanna nuclear (restructured as grid-connected retail) up to 1,920 17 $18B headline; deliveries ramp 840-1,200 MW by 2029, 1,680-1,920 MW by 2032 2026 transition; full ramp by 2032 Signed June 11, 2025; FTM retail structure avoids FERC ISA issue Talen IR ; Utility Dive ; POWER Magazine
Meta Constellation — Clinton Clean Energy Center (IL) — extension PPA + 30 MW uprate 1,121 (+30 uprate) 20 Undisclosed; preserves 1,100 jobs; $13.5M annual local tax revenue June 2027 Signed June 3, 2025; supports relicensing Constellation announcement ; Meta blog ; Utility Dive
Meta Vistra — Perry (OH), Davis-Besse (OH), Beaver Valley (PA) — PPAs + uprates 2,176 (operating) + 433 (uprates) = 2,609 20 Not disclosed (largest corporate-supported uprates in US) Deliveries begin late 2026; full 2,609 MW by 2034 Signed January 9, 2026 Vistra IR ; Meta press ; Utility Dive
Undisclosed investment-grade buyer (widely assumed hyperscaler) Vistra — Comanche Peak nuclear (TX) 1,200 (of 2,400 MW plant) 20 (+ option for additional 20) Not disclosed Q4 2027 ramp; full volume by 2032 Signed Sept 2025 Power Engineering ; Vistra 8-K via TheValueist
Meta (RFP) Open RFP — large reactors and SMRs 1,000–4,000 (sought) TBD TBD Early 2030s Announced Dec 3, 2024; RFP closed Feb 7, 2025 (Vistra, Oklo, TerraPower selected Jan 2026) Meta Sustainability blog ; Utility Dive
Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Nucor (joint) Duke Energy — Carolinas (clean-energy tariffs / new nuclear / LDES) Tariff framework n/a New "tariff" rate structures for early commitments to new nuclear & LDES n/a MOU October 2024; subsequent 2.7 GW of new data-center service agreements signed Duke Energy press ; Hoodline coverage

SMR and Advanced Reactor Deals

Hyperscaler / Buyer Power Provider / Asset Capacity (MW) Term (yrs) Value / $/MWh COD Status Source
Google Kairos Power — fleet of KP-FHR molten-salt SMRs (multi-site, in service territories of Google data centers) up to 500 Multi-PPA / Master Plant Development Agreement Undisclosed First unit 2030; additional deployments through 2035 Announced Oct 14, 2024 — world's first corporate SMR PPA Google blog ; Utility Dive
Google (via TVA) Kairos Power — Hermes 2 plant, Oak Ridge, TN (uprate from 28 to 50 MW; TVA buys, serves Google sites in TN/AL) 50 PPA between Kairos and TVA Undisclosed 2030 Signed mid-2025; first SMR–utility PPA in the US Kairos Power press ; WNN
Amazon X-energy (Xe-100 HTGR) — equity investment + offtake framework up to 5,000 by 2039 n/a (equity + future PPAs) $500M financing round (Amazon Climate Pledge Fund anchor, plus Citadel, Ares, NGP, UMich) Initial blocks targeted "2030s" Investment announced Oct 16, 2024 X-energy press ; WNN
Amazon Energy Northwest + X-energy — "Cascade Advanced Energy Facility," Richland, WA (near Columbia Generating Station) First block 320 (4 SMRs); ultimately 960 MW (3 blocks, 12 SMRs) n/a Cost split with Energy Northwest; details undisclosed Construction start late-2020s; ops "early 2030s" Announced Oct 2024 with WA siting; October 2025 update with renderings Energy Northwest ; POWER Mag ; ANS
Amazon Dominion Energy — North Anna SMR site, VA (MOU) at least 300 (initial) n/a (JV exploration; ~$500M reported) Cost & risk-sharing JV under discussion Mid-2030s MOU announced Oct 16, 2024 (NOT March 2025 as originally framed) Dominion IR ; Virginia Business
Oracle Three undisclosed SMRs ("permits secured") ~1,000+ n/a n/a Mid-2030s (most optimistic) Announced — Ellison earnings call, Sept 9, 2024; counterparties/sites still undisclosed DCD coverage ; CNBC
Meta Oklo — Aurora Powerhouse (sodium-cooled, 75 MWe units), Pike County, OH up to 1,200 (16+ units) Long-term PPA + prepay Meta prepays for power & funds project certainty First phase 2030; full 1.2 GW by 2034 Signed Jan 9, 2026 Oklo press ; TechCrunch
Meta TerraPower — Natrium (345 MWe sodium fast reactor + molten-salt storage, boost to 500 MW) up to 2,800 (8 units; 2 by 2032, 6 more by 2035) Long-term Undisclosed; Meta funds + offtake First demo unit Kemmerer, WY — 2030; Meta units 2032–2035 Signed Jan 9, 2026; Kemmerer demo construction underway Meta press ; Power Magazine
TVA (grid; Google data centers downstream) GE Vernova Hitachi — BWRX-300 at Clinch River, TN 300 (per unit) n/a (utility ownership) $400M DOE grant to TVA Possible 2033 commercial operation Construction permit application filed April/May 2025; first BWRX-300 CPA in US GE Vernova press ; DOE article
TVA + ENTRA1 (commercial-scale deployment partnership) NuScale Power — VOYGR (US460 modules @ 77 MWe) up to 6,000 across six plants n/a Framework agreement Mid-2030s Signed Sept 2025; NRC SDA for 77 MWe granted May 2025 POWER Magazine ; ANS
Standard Power (data-center IPP) NuScale (via Doosan equipment supply) — OH and PA campuses ~1,848 (24 modules × 77 MWe across two sites) n/a Reported $37B program; Doosan equipment slice $1.46B Late 2020s / early 2030s Announced 2023; Doosan equipment deal reported May 2024 NuScale press ; KED Global

Behind-the-Meter Gas, Fuel Cells, and Hybrid Power

Hyperscaler / Buyer Power Provider / Asset Capacity (MW) Term (yrs) Value / $/MWh COD Status Source
Hyperscaler (undisclosed) ExxonMobil — purpose-built gas + CCS plant (>90% CO2 capture) >1,500 TBD Part of XOM's $30B 2025-2030 low-carbon plan Late 2020s Announced/FEED Dec 2024; ExxonMobil engaged with NextEra on co-development Semafor ; POWER Magazine
Hyperscalers (Southeast, Midwest, West sites — buyer undisclosed) Chevron + Engine No. 1 + GE Vernova — 7 × 7HA gas turbines, BTM, optional CCS up to 4,000 n/a (developer-led) 7.9-8.1 MMBtu/MWh heat rate; slot reservation under accelerated timeline Initial in-service end-2027 Announced Jan 28, 2025 Chevron press ; Engine No. 1 PDF ; S&P Global
OpenAI / Oracle / SoftBank (Stargate flagship) Crusoe — Abilene, TX campus (gas turbines + on-site solar + BESS) 1,200 (total site); 360 MW on-site gas turbines (some GE Vernova) n/a (Crusoe is developer/IPP) Not disclosed Phase 1 live 2025; full 8-building site mid-2026 Operating (phase 1) Crusoe ; Data Center Frontier
Crusoe (broader portfolio) 4.5 GW of natural-gas power across pipeline of campuses 4,500 n/a Not disclosed Phased through 2027+ Announced 2025 DCD
Oracle (Project Stargate Texas — sites beyond Abilene) VoltaGrid — modular BTM gas generation packs (25 MW units) 2,300 n/a Supply agreement Phased 2025-2027 Signed 2025 DCD coverage of VoltaGrid/Halliburton 400 MW build ; Power Magazine reciprocating-engine coverage
AEP (utility — supplies AI data center customers) Bloom Energy — solid-oxide fuel cells (natural gas/biogas/H₂ capable) up to 1,000 (100 MW initial order; expansion 2025+) n/a Largest commercial fuel-cell procurement ever; deployable in 6-9 months First units 2025 Announced Nov 2024 Bloom press ; Utility Dive
Hyperscale data-center fleet (American power plant serving DC) Wärtsilä — 24 × Wärtsilä 50SG reciprocating engines 429 n/a Order disclosed in Wärtsilä financials 2025-2026 Order booked Power Magazine
Meta (Hyperion, Louisiana & others) Caterpillar + Solar Turbines + reciprocating engines (on-site gas) Multi-GW (Hyperion site forecasts >2 GW gas) n/a Vendor packages 2026-2028 Site under construction Power Engineering ; Tom's Hardware
xAI (Colossus, Memphis) Solar Turbines (Caterpillar) + Voltagrid mobile gas generators on-site 250+ initial; 2 GW planned (Colossus 2) n/a Not disclosed Operating 2024-2025; expansion 2026 Operating (with Shelby County air-permit controversy over turbines) Tom's Hardware

Geothermal, Long-Duration Storage, and Other

Hyperscaler / Buyer Power Provider / Asset Capacity (MW) Term (yrs) Value / $/MWh COD Status Source
Google (via NV Energy) Fervo Energy — Enhanced Geothermal Systems, Nevada (Project Red + scale-up) 3.5 → 115 (planned) Multi-year tariff with NV Energy Not disclosed Project Red operating since 2023; scale to 115 MW over ~6 years Operating (initial); expansion under construction Google blog ; thinkgeoenergy
Google (equity investor) Fervo Energy — Cape Station, Utah (Series E) 500 (project); 70 MW phase 1; 400 MW SCE PPA n/a (equity) $462M Series E (Dec 2025) Phase 1 2026; phase 2 2028 Under construction TechCrunch ; Fervo SCE press
Meta Sage Geosystems — Geopressured Geothermal, east of Rockies (Texas-likely) 150 (phased; 8 MW by 2027, scale to 150 MW within 36-48 months) Long-term PPA Not disclosed First phase 2027 Announced Aug 2024 Meta blog ; thinkgeoenergy
Meta XGS Energy — geothermal, New Mexico (additional 2026 PPA) ~150 (combined Meta geothermal book is 300 MW with Sage + XGS) Long-term Not disclosed Late 2020s Announced 2026 EnkiAI summary

Contextual Analysis

1. Prices: what hyperscalers are actually paying

Almost no nuclear PPA discloses a $/MWh. The Microsoft-Constellation TMI deal is the cleanest data point: Morgan Stanley pegged it at ~$98/MWh, vs ~$50/MWh PJM wholesale and ~$30/MWh in 45Y clean-energy tax credit value. Net to Constellation that is something like $128/MWh of effective revenue — call it a 2.5x premium to spot. That math is why Vistra, Talen, and Constellation stocks rerated and why the 2025 PJM capacity auction cleared at the $333.44/MW-day cap in all four LDAs — the marginal cost of new firm capacity has moved sharply because hyperscalers have demonstrated willingness to pay it.

The Talen-Amazon $18B for 1,920 MW over 17 years implies roughly $63/MWh blended if you assume full ramp and a high capacity factor — but that headline likely undercounts because deliveries ramp into 2032. On a flat-volume basis it's closer to $85-95/MWh, in the same neighborhood as TMI.

The Meta-Vistra and Meta-Constellation deals are undisclosed, but Meta's willingness to fund uprates (Davis-Besse, Perry, Beaver Valley adding 433 MW) and to prepay Oklo for SMR capacity strongly suggests buyers are absorbing development and commercial risk that historically sat with utilities. This is the "AI as utility ratebase" turn.

2. The FERC pivot: ER24-2172 and its aftermath

The November 1, 2024 FERC order (Docket ER24-2172, 2-1 with Chairman Phillips dissenting) rejected PJM's filing of an amended ISA that would have increased Amazon's BTM tap at Susquehanna from 300 MW to 480 MW. AEP and Exelon argued the structure could shift ~$140M/year of transmission costs to ordinary ratepayers because the co-located load was not deemed "network load" subject to transmission charges.

The order forced the industry to retool. Talen and Amazon came back in June 2025 with a front-of-the-meter retail structure: Susquehanna's output flows to PJM, PPL handles T&D, Talen acts as retail supplier to AWS. This sidesteps the ISA question entirely — at the cost of paying full transmission. FERC then issued a broader order on December 18, 2025 directing PJM to reform its rules on generators co-located with load. The new regime essentially codifies that BTM is permitted but the load must contribute to grid costs proportionate to its reliance on the system. (Morgan Lewis summary)

3. Why utilities are pushing back

Dominion, AEP, Exelon, and Duke have been the most vocal opponents of pure BTM. Their arguments cluster on three points:

  • Cost-shifting: a 1 GW co-located load in ComEd territory would avoid roughly $253M/year in transmission charges that residential customers then absorb (Harvard EELP).
  • Reliability: utilities argue "isolated" co-location is a fiction — co-located loads still draw from the grid during outages, and their plant departures destabilize wholesale supply.
  • Ratebase capture: utilities prefer to serve data centers as network load because that grows their regulated capex base (transmission, generation under IRPs). Dominion's Virginia IRP and Duke's Carolinas plans both forecast multi-GW load growth and ask state PUCs to socialize the buildout.

Ohio's PUCO approved an AEP Ohio data-center tariff in 2025 that explicitly assigns the costs of new infrastructure to the data centers driving it — an emerging template (POWER Magazine).

4. The capacity-auction signal

PJM's 2027/2028 BRA cleared $333.44/MW-day in every zone, the price cap, on December 17, 2025. Monitoring Analytics' analysis: across the last three auctions, $21.3B of $47.2B in total cleared cost (45%) is attributable to data-center forecast growth above existing data-center load. The mechanism: a 5,250 MW upward revision in PJM's load forecast — almost entirely data centers — combined with limited new supply, forces clearing prices into the cap region. The cost is then socialized across ratepayers via demand-side capacity charges. This is the real economic pain point that has politicized the AI-power story in PJM states.

5. The Texas / ERCOT angle

ERCOT has been more permissive than PJM (no centralized capacity market; large-load queue grew ~300% in 2024), but Texas SB 6 (2025) now requires data centers to disclose backup generation, accept ERCOT-directed curtailment, and submit on-site arrangements for PUC review. Lancium, Crusoe, and VoltaGrid have built Texas businesses precisely on stranded-gas and curtailable-load models, but the regulatory environment is tightening. Crusoe's Abilene Stargate site is the showcase: 1.2 GW with 360 MW of on-site gas turbines, on-site solar, and large BTM storage.

6. The SMR reality check

No US SMR is operating. The most optimistic credible CODs are:

  • Hermes 2 / Kairos (TVA-Google): 2030 for 50 MW
  • Natrium / TerraPower Kemmerer demo: 2030 for 345 MW
  • Cascade / X-energy Washington: "early 2030s" for first 320 MW block
  • BWRX-300 Clinch River: 2033 commercial operation

The SMR contracts therefore serve two roles in 2025-2026: (a) financing — Amazon's $500M into X-energy, Meta's prepayment to Oklo, Google's equity into Fervo and Kairos — and (b) option value on post-2030 capacity. Through 2030, gas turbines, fuel cells, and existing-nuclear uprates do the actual work.

7. The behind-the-meter gas surge

The numbers most underappreciated by capex analysts are on the gas side. Caterpillar, Solar Turbines, Wärtsilä, INNIO/Jenbacher, and GE Vernova are all sold out through 2027 on aero-derivative and reciprocating engine slots. The Engine No. 1 / Chevron / GE Vernova 4 GW deal reserved seven 7HA turbines under a slot agreement specifically because slot capacity is the bottleneck. Wärtsilä reported 29% YoY Energy-division sales growth in Q4 2025. INNIO Jenbacher booked a 1.5 GW order from VoltaGrid alone. VoltaGrid is supplying 2.3 GW of BTM gas to Oracle's Stargate Texas sites. ExxonMobil's 1.5+ GW pitch is differentiated by an integrated CCS solution — leveraging XOM's Permian transport-and-storage backbone.

The implication: through 2028, gas (with optional CCS) is the dominant marginal source of net new AI data-center power, not nuclear. Nuclear is the headline; gas is the grind.

Key Open Questions / Watch Items

  1. Will FERC's Dec 2025 PJM co-location order be appealed? If yes, expect months of additional uncertainty for the Talen-Amazon-style restructures.
  2. Texas SB 6 implementation — will ERCOT actually curtail data centers, and what are the contractual responses?
  3. CCS economics for ExxonMobil-style projects — are hyperscalers paying a green premium, or is 45Q tax credit enough?
  4. SMR licensing risk — Kairos, Oklo, X-energy, NuScale all need NRC actions in 2026-2028 to hold timelines. Slippage is the base case.
  5. Capacity-market reform in PJM — if data-center load is allowed to bid in differently (e.g., as flexible/curtailable), price cap dynamics could ease.
  6. Hyperion / xAI Memphis air permit cases — local opposition to BTM gas turbines is the early front of NIMBY pushback.

Sources