NextEra Energy has secured a $1.9 billion loan from the U.S. Department of Energy to refurbish the Duane Arnold Energy Center in Iowa. The plant has been inactive since 2020, when it was mothballed after rainstorm damage and a market flooded with cheap natural gas.
The facility is scheduled to restart in 2029. NextEra CEO John Ketchum stated that 50 megawatts of the plant's capacity will be allocated to the local power cooperative, covering 18% of Iowa's demand growth since 2021.
Google is reportedly planning to build up to six data centers near the power plant to support its AI operations. The refurbishment process will increase the facility's total capacity to 615 megawatts, adding an extra 14 megawatts of power.
The U.S. government is increasingly supporting the restart of shuttered nuclear plants to meet the rising electricity demand from AI data centers. This loan is the second of its kind, following a $1 billion loan provided to Constellation Energy for the Three Mile Island reactor.
Microsoft has a similar agreement with Constellation Energy to restart a reactor at Three Mile Island that ceased operations in 2019, with a target restart date of 2028 and a capacity of 835 megawatts.
Meta is purchasing clean energy attributes from the 1.1 gigawatt Clinton Clean Energy Center in Illinois. The company's Hyperion AI data center is expected to consume more electricity than the entire state of South Dakota if completed.