Dive Brief:
- Meta announced deals on Friday with three nuclear power generation companies to enable new nuclear generation and expand current operating capacity, as the tech behemoth looks to power its artificial intelligence ambitions with clean energy.
- The social media conglomerate signed deals with TerraPower, Oklo and Vistra that are expected to collectively enable up to 6.6 gigawatts of clean energy by 2035, Meta said in a press release.
- Meta said the deals are from a request for proposals in late 2024, which sought nuclear generation options to support the company’s AI goals. The deals follow a 20-year nuclear power purchase agreement Meta signed with Constellation Energy last June.
Dive Insight:
Meta, owner of social media platforms Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and Whatsapp, made the agreements as its data center emissions rise due to AI. The company reported that its data center emissions rose 24% year-over-year in 2024, even as its scope 1 and 2 emissions fell 3.5% over the same period, according to data from its latest sustainability report. Meta is aiming to reach net-zero emissions across its supply chain by 2030.
Meta said the three deals will help support its AI innovation, add clean energy to the grid and provide continued investments in operational nuclear power plants. The new deals, in addition to the Constellation contract, “make Meta one of the most significant corporate purchasers of nuclear energy in American history,” Meta Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan said.
“State-of-the-art data centers and AI infrastructure are essential to securing America’s position as a global leader in AI,” Kaplan said in Meta’s release. “Nuclear energy will help power our AI future, strengthen our country’s energy infrastructure, and provide clean, reliable electricity for everyone.”
Meta and TerraPower reached an agreement that will support the development of up to eight nuclear reactor and energy storage system plants. The deal represents “Meta’s largest support of advanced nuclear technologies to date,” TerraPower said Friday in a separate release. The plants are expected to provide Meta with up to 2.8 GW of electricity and expand TerraPower’s total output to 4 GW.
The agreement will support early development of two new nuclear generation units, with the energy rights for up to six additional units, according to TerraPower’s release. The first units are expected to be operational in 2032.
"To successfully address growing energy demand, we must deploy gigawatts of advanced nuclear energy in the 2030s,” TerraPower President and CEO Chris Levesque said.
The tech giant’s deal with Oklo will enable the development of a 1.2 GW power campus in southern Ohio to support Meta’s data centers in the region.
Oklo said it will use the funds from the deal to purchase nuclear fuel and advance the first phase of the plant’s development, according to a release. Preconstruction is expected to begin this year, with the first phase expected to come online as soon as 2030. Oklo expects the plant to reach its full capacity by 2034, the release said.
Meta and Vistra’s deal is a 20-year power purchase agreement that will provide Meta with over 2,600 megawatts of nuclear energy from three of Vistra’s nuclear power plants in Ohio and Pennsylvania. The deal includes agreements for 2,176 MW of operational generation, along with 433 MW of power output increases. Vistra said in its release that it represents the largest nuclear capacity increase supported by a U.S. corporate customer.
Vistra said the deal will allow it to extend the licenses of the three nuclear plants by 20 years.
