Dive Brief:

• Google and electric utility giant NextEra Energy are teaming up to restart Iowa’s only nuclear facility to help meet the growing energy demand associated with artificial intelligence-powered data centers, the companies announced Monday.
• The companies plan to revive the Duane Arnold Energy Center by 2029 to supply Google with carbon-free energy. Google said it signed a 25-year agreement to buy electricity from the 615-megawatt nuclear plant, which will be used to power its budding cloud and AI infrastructure in Iowa, per an Oct. 27 release.
• Clean energy generated from the nuclear facility — which originally shuttered in 2020 — will also help support local grid reliability, create around 400 job opportunities and spur substantial economic investment to the Midwestern U.S., the companies said.

Dive Insight:

Google and NextEra expect the Duane Arnold Energy Center to come online and deliver electricity to the grid by the first quarter of 2029, pending regulatory approval.

“This partnership serves as a model for the investments needed across the country to build energy capacity and deliver reliable, clean power, while protecting affordability and creating jobs that will drive the AI-driven economy,” Ruth Porat, president and chief investment officer at Google and its parent company Alphabet said in the release.

In addition to Google’s power purchase agreement, the Central Iowa Power Cooperative — a generation and transmission electric group and the state’s largest energy supplier — has agreed to buy surplus energy generated by the nuclear plant that is not being bought by the tech giant.

Google joins a growing number of tech giants who have turned to nuclear to help offset growing data center energy needs driven by AI.

In June, Meta and Constellation Energy inked a 20-year nuclear PPA to provide the social media and tech conglomerate access to 1,121 MW of zero emissions power for its AI goals and help keep an Illinois facility online.

Earlier in the year, Google and Meta — along with “large energy users” like Amazon and Oxy — signed a pledge to support nuclear energy’s role in creating energy resiliency and “at least” tripling global nuclear capacity by 2050.