Summary
Google and Constellation Energy announced upgrades at six operating nuclear plants that are expected to add 890 MW of capacity to the PJM grid before the end of 2032. The collaboration also includes Google Cloud’s Gemini Enterprise tools for plant operations.
Google says a new agreement with Constellation Energy will support upgrades at six operating nuclear plants in Illinois, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, adding 890 megawatts (MW) of capacity to the PJM electricity grid before the end of 2032. The collaboration also involves deploying Google Cloud’s Gemini Enterprise agentic workflows across Constellation’s core operations.
The planned capacity would come from uprating existing reactors, rather than building a new nuclear station. Google describes the agreement as a power purchase agreement (PPA) and says its long-term commitment will provide revenue certainty for Constellation’s investment in the upgrades.
How the upgrades would add power
A nuclear uprate increases an existing reactor’s generating capacity. Google says the work can involve modernising turbines, steam generators and digital control systems, enabling a plant to produce more electricity without constructing a new reactor.
The 890 MW is expected to be firm, round-the-clock capacity for PJM, a grid operator spanning 13 states in the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest that serves 67 million people. Google says the added power would be comparable to bringing a large reactor onto the system, while taking years less than building one from scratch.
The company says the work will involve physical and digital upgrades at six plants. It also says the long-term revenue from its offtake will support upgrades at 11 Constellation reactors. Google estimates that the project will sustain about 4,400 existing jobs and support approximately 7,200 new construction jobs. It says the upgrades will add capacity without placing their associated costs on other grid customers.
Google Cloud’s Gemini Enterprise is intended to support the work through agentic workflows: software processes that can carry out sequences of tasks. Constellation is deploying these workflows to accelerate uprate planning, streamline construction and optimise plant output. The announcement presents this as an operational tool for getting upgraded capacity to the grid sooner, not as a change to how nuclear reactors generate electricity.
Part of a wider nuclear expansion effort
Google says this agreement brings the nuclear capacity it has enabled for the U.S. energy system through uprates and plant restarts to more than 1.5 gigawatts. The company also cites the U.S. Department of Energy’s goal of enabling 5 GW of domestic nuclear expansion by 2030 through those routes, and estimates its agreements will account for nearly a quarter of that target by the end of the decade.
The strategy links Google’s data-centre growth to long-term purchases of electricity from existing nuclear infrastructure. For the grid, uprates can add generation capacity at operating sites; for the company, the agreements are intended to secure reliable power while supporting investment in plant equipment and construction work. The 890 MW figure is a planned addition, with the upgrades expected to be completed before the end of 2032.