On June 3, 2025, Constellation Energy and Meta signed a 20-year power purchase agreement for the entire output of the Clinton Clean Energy Center, a single-unit nuclear plant in Illinois rated at 1,121 megawatts. Delivery begins in June 2027, exactly when the state’s ratepayer-funded zero-emission credit program for the plant expires. In effect, Meta replaced a public subsidy with a private corporate contract, keeping a plant running that had been at risk of closure.
The deal’s terms made its purpose explicit. Constellation said the agreement would expand Clinton’s output by 30 megawatts through plant uprates, preserve roughly 1,100 high-paying local jobs, and deliver about $13.5 million in annual tax revenue. Constellation framed the contract as supporting Meta’s clean-energy goals and its operations in the region - corporate shorthand for the electricity its data centers consume.
The structure was different from Microsoft’s Three Mile Island restart, which brought a shuttered reactor back to life. Clinton was already operating; Meta’s contribution was the long-term financial certainty needed to keep it open and even expand it once its government support lapsed. It became a template for how AI operators could underwrite the continued existence of existing nuclear capacity, not only the construction of new plants, as a way to secure round-the-clock carbon-free power for AI workloads.