One of the largest nuclear power plants in the United States will directly power a new data center for cloud service provider Amazon Web Services.
Power provider Talen Energy has sold its data center campus, Cumulus Data Assets, to Amazon Web Services for $650 million. Amazon will develop a data center of up to 960 megawatts (MW) at the Salem Township site in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.
The 1,200-acre campus is directly powered by an adjacent 2.5 gigawatt (GW) nuclear power plant, also owned by Talen Energy.
The 1,075-acre Susquehanna Steam Power Plant is the sixth largest nuclear power plant in the United States. It has been in operation since 1983 and generates 63 million kilowatt-hours of electricity per day. The plant has two General Electric boiling water reactors in Mark II containment vessels, licensed from 2042 to 2044.
According to Talen Energy's investor presentation, the company plans to supply fixed-price nuclear power to Amazon's new data center. Amazon has a minimum power contract that increases by 120 MW over several years. The cloud services giant has two options: a one-time option capping the commitment at 480MW, and a 10-year extension option with nuclear license renewal.
Electrek's view
Although nuclear power is not everyone's favorite net-zero power source, this acquisition makes a lot of sense for Amazon Web Services. There's a huge demand for what Amazon Web Services provides, and that requires energy.
The Susquehanna Steam Power Plant is already operational and the data center campus is turnkey. Amazon enters the picture. Operates on 100% clean energy.
Talen Energy founded Cumulus Data Assets in 2020 to bring together “digital infrastructure and clean power” for this very reason. The idea seems to have really worked.
read more: Should the U.S. convert coal-fired power plant sites to nuclear power? The DOE seems to think so.
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