New nuclear capacity won’t show up until around 2030
Meta is writing more checks for nuclear investment, even though the new capacity tied to those deals is unlikely to come online until around 2030. The company says it will need the new power to run its hyperscale datacenters.
Facebook's parent company says it has inked agreements with three outfits - TerraPower and Oklo are developing new reactor technology or building fresh sites, while Vistra is supporting existing nuclear plants. All three will deliver electricity into the grid rather than straight to Meta's own facilities.
Meta claims that this work is part of ongoing efforts with electric utility companies and power providers to "plan for and meet our energy needs years in advance of our data centers becoming operational."
Just over a year ago, the social media giant estimated that it would need one to four gigawatts of nuclear power in the future, on top of the energy it already consumes, and put out a request for proposals (RFP) to find firms willing to supply it.
That was followed by today's agreements with Vistra, TerraPower, and Oklo. Meta claims that these, along with the one signed last June with Constellation Energy, make it one of the largest corporate purchasers of nuclear energy in America, as the three combined will eventually add up to 6.6 GW to the grid.
However, missing from all of this is any mention of cost. We asked Meta how much these agreements are worth, but a spokesperson told us that it does not share the financial details of its clean energy agreements.
The deal with Oklo is for an "advanced nuclear technology campus" in Pike County, Ohio. This is expected to deliver up to 1.2 GW of baseload power to the PJM grid, which Meta says will support its operations in the region. This "may" come online as early as 2030.
Oklo, which is backed by OpenAI kingpin Sam Altman, disclosed in 2024 that it had interest from two major datacenter operators to provide power for them. Equinix signed an agreement last year.
The firm said it will use Meta's funding to secure nuclear fuel and advance Phase 1 of its Aurora powerhouse deployment. This is the name bestowed on its facilities, which are designed to look more like a Scandinavian log cabin or an art gallery than a power plant.
With TerraPower, the agreement is to support early development for two of the firm's Natrium reactors and energy storage system plants capable of generating up to 690 MW, plus rights for energy from up to six other units.
Each Natrium reactor is a 345 MW sodium fast reactor, which TerraPower pairs with a molten salt energy storage system designed to deliver gigawatt-scale output. Delivery of the initial units is slated for 2032.
Vistra already operates a number of nuclear power plants, and Meta's deal with it comprises 20-year power purchase agreements from three of these.
According to Vistra, Meta is paying for about 2.1 GW from the already operating Perry and Davis-Besse plants in Ohio, plus 433 MW of incremental capacity from power uprates at those sites and the Beaver Valley facility in Pennsylvania.
This additional capacity is expected to come online in the early 2030s, supporting the "growing needs in the PJM grid region in the future," Meta said. In other words, the electricity generated at the plants will continue to flow to the grid.
In the meantime, Meta's mega server farms will continue to be largely powered by electricity generated using fossil fuels. Even the $10 billion facility it is building in Louisiana will be powered by gas turbines, even though this is not expected to come online until 2030, around the time its atomic investments are set to bear fruit.
As The Register reported last year, nuclear power may be seen as the ideal solution to power the AI-driven datacenter expansion, but build times for atomic plants mean that any additional capacity won't be ready until the next decade – leaving a gap that needs plugging somehow. ®