DOE Approves $1 Billion Loan for Three Mile Island Restart

The U.S. Department of Energy announced on Tuesday a $1 billion loan to Constellation Energy Generation LLC to support the restart of a long-idle nuclear reactor at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island site, located on an island in the Susquehanna River near Harrisburg. The financing will help revive Unit 1, the plant's remaining operable reactor, under a 20-year power purchase agreement with Microsoft to supply energy for the tech company's data centers.

Constellation, a Baltimore-based energy provider, plans to invest $1.6 billion overall in the project, which includes restoring key equipment such as the turbine, generator, main power transformer, and cooling and control systems. The 835-megawatt reactor, capable of generating carbon-free electricity for approximately 800,000 homes, has been offline since 2019. The company aims to bring it back online by 2027, pending approvals from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The loan, issued through the department's Loan Programs Office, marks the first project to reach financial close under this administration and draws from a $250 billion energy infrastructure program authorized by Congress in 2022. Specific terms of the loan were...