Microsoft: Buying Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Will Help ‘Carbon-Free Energy’ Goal

The site of America’s worst nuclear disaster will soon reopen to exclusively sell power to Microsoft. Here’s what you need to know.

Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island was the site of America’s worst nuclear disaster. In a bold move, the nuclear plant is reopening to exclusively sell power to Microsoft to aid the company’s massive AI future.

The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant signed a deal to revive the closed down Three Mile Island nuclear power plant with exclusive rights to 100 percent of the output in order to power its data center infrastructure.

Once reopened, the plant can generate 837 megawatts of energy which Microsoft will use to fuel its AI strategy.

Bob Hollis, Microsoft’s vice president of energy, said the agreement will help his company’s sustainability efforts.

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

If the project gets approved by regulators, the site will become operational in 2028.

The $1.6 Billion Plan

The deal would enable a restart of Unit 1 of the 50-year-old nuclear power facility that was shut in 2019 due to operational reasons. Unit 2 of the site, which was shut after a partial nuclear meltdown in 1979 is not going to be restarted.

In 1999, Constellation Energy purchased the nuclear plant and operated the facility for 20 years.

In its last year of operation, the plant was producing electricity at maximum capacity 96.3 percent of the time. The reactor that Constellation hopes to reopen can generate 837 megawatts of energy, enough to power more than 800,000 homes.

Constellation will invest $1.6 billion to revive the plant and Microsoft will purchase power from the plant for 20 years. Microsoft has a goal to match the power its data centers consume in the area covered by the PJM regional energy transmission organization with carbon-free energy.

Financial terms of the 20-year deal were not disclosed.

“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,” said Constellation CEO Joe Dominguez in a statement.

Dominguez said before the plant was shuttered it, “was among the safest and most reliable nuclear plants on the grid, and we look forward to bringing it back with a new name and a renewed mission to serve as an economic engine for Pennsylvania.”