Power Company Plans To Restart Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant

Constellation Energy said it will restart a unit at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, the site of a partial nuclear meltdown in 1979, as part of a 20-year deal to provide energy to Microsoft's data centers for the tech giant's push into artificial intelligence, the company said Friday.

The Baltimore-based company said it would restart unit 1, which was undamaged in the accident but closed five years ago for economic and operational reasons, making a $1.6 billion investment to the plant's turbine, generator, power transformer and cooling and control systems.

Constellation said it plans to have the plant running by 2028 after gaining approval from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other state and local agencies.

"Powering industries critical to our nation's global economic and technological competitiveness, including data centers, requires an abundance of energy that is carbon-free and reliable every hour of every day, and nuclear plants are the only energy sources that can consistently deliver on that promise," Joe Dominguez, president and CEO of Constellation, said in a statement on Friday.

Unit 1 sits next to the reactor that was shuttered after the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history.

Constellation said the unit has the capacity to generate 837 megawatts, enough to power more than 800,000 average homes.

"This agreement is a major milestone in Microsoft's efforts to help decarbonize the grid in support of our commitment to become carbon negative. Microsoft continues to collaborate with energy providers to develop carbon-free energy sources to help meet the grids' capacity and reliability needs," said Bobby Hollis, vice president of energy for Microsoft.