Meta has signed a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Constellation Energy for more than 1.1GW of power from a nuclear power plant in Clinton, Illinois.

The contract, which will commence in June 2027, will see Meta offtake the entire output of the Constellation-owned 1.121GW Clinton Clean Energy Center.

The agreement will support the relicensing and operations of the facility for two decades, following the expiration of the state-funded zero-emission credit program. In addition, the deal will expand the output of the plant by a further 30MW, through uprates. The expansion will increase the output of the nuclear plant from 1.092GW to 1.121GW.

“We are proud to partner with Meta because they figured out that supporting the relicensing and expansion of existing plants is just as impactful as finding new sources of energy. Sometimes the most important part of our journey forward is to stop taking steps backwards,” said Joe Dominguez, president and CEO of Constellation.

The Clinton nuclear plant had been originally slated for closure in 2017, following years of financial losses. The closure was initially prevented following the enactment of the Future Energy Jobs Act, which established a Zero Emission Credit program that provides financial support to the plant through mid-2027.

The PPA with Meta will effectively replace the program, allowing for its continued operations. Power from the project will continue to feed into the local grid, with Meta purchasing the clean attributes generated by the plant, as part of its drive to match its electricity use with low-carbon energy.

“We are excited to partner with Constellation and the Clinton community to ensure the long-term operations of the nuclear plant, add new capacity, and help preserve over 1,000 jobs. Securing clean, reliable energy is necessary to continue advancing our AI ambitions,” said Urvi Parekh, head of global energy at Meta. “We are proud to help keep the Clinton plant operating for years to come and demonstrate that this plant is an important piece to strengthening American leadership in energy.”

Constellation is currently evaluating the possibility of extending the plant's existing early site permit or seeking a new construction permit from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to develop an advanced nuclear reactor or small modular reactor at the site.

The PPA is the second Constellation has signed with a data center provider. Last September, it inked a 20-year PPA with Microsoft for the entire output of the revived Three Mile Island nuclear power plant.

The agreement will see Microsoft offtake capacity from the 837MW Unit 1 reactor, which has been renamed the Crane Clean Energy Center. The reactor is expected to come online in 2028, with the PPA subject to approval from NRC sometime this year.

The deal with Meta follows Constellation doubling down on its strategy to supply energy to the data center sector. During the company’s Q1 earnings call in May, Dominguez stated that the growth of AI data center demand represented an “ample opportunity to support both in front of and behind the meter data center development at significant scale.”

Constellation runs the largest nuclear fleet in the US, with 21 reactors spread across 12 sites in the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, and Northeast. In addition to its nuclear operations, the company manages a diverse portfolio of low-carbon energy assets, including hydropower, wind, and solar, totaling more than 32.4GW of capacity.

The PPA is Meta's first with a nuclear power asset. In December, the company released a request for proposals to identify potential nuclear energy developers to support 1.4GW of new nuclear generation capacity across the US.

However, things have not all been smooth sailing for Meta's nuclear ambitions. Last November, it saw a potential nuclear power supply deal for an artificial intelligence data center obstructed by the discovery of a rare bee species on the land where the project was planned.