Power & Sites · United States

DOE intends to loan Vistra $4.2B for nuclear fleet improvements

Credited to Utility Dive · utilitydive.com · 1d ago

Photograph · Utility Dive

The loan would cover 433 MW of uprates at Vistra’s nuclear plants and preserve around 4 GW of existing capacity to help meet growing demand in the PJM region, said the U.S. Department of Energy.

The U.S. Department of Energy announced Monday that it has made a conditional loan commitment of $4.2 billion to Vistra Corp. to finance nuclear uprates and modernization across the company’s nuclear fleet in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Vistra announced in January that the company was pursuing a total of 433 MW of uprates at its Perry and Davis-Besse nuclear plants in Ohio and its Beaver Valley plant in Pennsylvania, in connection with a 2.6 GW power purchase agreement with Meta.

A release from DOE’s Office of Energy Dominance Financing, formerly the Loan Programs Office, said that the loan would cover 433 MW of new capacity and preserve around 4 GW of nuclear to help “meet growing electricity demand in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and across the PJM [Interconnection] region.”

“Vistra’s planned investments at Beaver Valley in Pennsylvania and Davis-Besse and Perry in Ohio will produce more electricity from existing nuclear plants without requiring new transmission corridors or equivalent new generation resources, while supporting the plants’ operation for an additional 20 years beyond their existing licenses,” DOE said.

The deal also includes an option for DOE to finance future uprates at Vistra’s Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant in Texas, according to the release.

Vistra’s January 8-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission specified the details of its deal with Meta: the company will supply Meta with the full 1,268 MW of capacity from its Perry nuclear plant, and the full 908 MW of capacity from its Davis-Besse plant.

Meta will also receive 213 MW of uprate energy and capacity from Perry, 80 MW of uprate energy and capacity from Davis-Besse, and 140 MW of uprate energy and capacity from Beaver Valley, the filing said.

“While this conditional commitment indicates DOE's intent to provide a loan, Vistra must satisfy certain technical, legal, environmental, and financial conditions before the Department enters into definitive financing documents and funds the loan,” DOE said.

TeraWulf Doubles Contracted Power at Muskie Data Campus to 1 GW

Credited to Converge Digest · convergedigest.com2d ago

Useful

TeraWulf has amended its electric service agreement with Kentucky Power, an American Electric Power (AEP) company, to increase contracted power capacity at its Muskie Data Campus in eastern Kentucky from 500 MW to 1 GW. The agreement also accelerates the planned delivery of the campus’s second 500 MW phase from 2030 to 2029, while the initial 500 MW remains targeted to begin ramping in 2028.

The amendment strengthens TeraWulf’s power position at Muskie as the company develops the site for large-scale AI and high-performance computing workloads. Importantly, the 1 GW figure represents contracted electric service capacity rather than operating data-center capacity. The second phase remains subject to Kentucky Public Service Commission approval and Kentucky Power’s construction schedule.

TeraWulf Muskie Data Campus — Key Points

• 1 GW contracted power — amended Kentucky Power agreement doubles the electric service commitment from 500 MW. • First 500 MW: targeted to begin ramping in 2028. • Second 500 MW: planned delivery moved forward from 2030 to 2029. • Regulatory dependency: second phase remains subject to Kentucky PSC approval and Kentucky Power’s construction schedule. • Kentucky Power is developing a 765-kV / 345-kV substation connected to the regional transmission network. • TeraWulf says it is evaluating the site’s potential to eventually support up to 2 GW, subject to additional utility planning, infrastructure and agreements. • Muskie was acquired by TeraWulf in May 2026 for development as an AI/HPC campus.

TeraWulf acquired Muskie in May 2026. The approximately 308-acre site is located in Grayson, Kentucky, within the EastPark Industrial Park. Kentucky Power is developing a 345-kV substation connected to the existing 765-kV transmission network to provide the high-voltage infrastructure required for hyperscale development.

When the acquisition was announced, TeraWulf targeted the initial 500 MW for the second half of 2028 and another 500 MW for the second half of 2030. The new agreement therefore does more than formalize additional capacity under the electric service agreement: it moves the second phase forward by approximately one year.

TeraWulf Chairman and CEO Paul Prager said customer interest in Muskie has been strong and that securing the additional 500 MW gives the company greater flexibility in discussions with prospective customers. No tenant or AI compute customer was identified for Muskie in the October 5 announcement.

The company is also evaluating whether Muskie could ultimately expand to as much as 2 GW. That additional capacity has not been contracted and would require further utility planning, infrastructure and agreements.

The distinction between contracted power, planned power and delivered capacity is increasingly important as AI infrastructure developers announce multi-gigawatt development pipelines. TeraWulf now has an amended electric service agreement covering 1 GW at Muskie, but the first 500 MW is not expected to begin ramping until 2028, and the second 500 MW is planned for 2029 and remains subject to regulatory approval and utility construction.

There is also a useful clarification relative to TeraWulf’s earlier disclosures. Its Q2 2026 10-Q described the original arrangement as a 500 MW electric service agreement plus a separate 1,000 MW letter of agreement covering transmission infrastructure. Today’s announcement makes the commercial position clearer: the amended and restated electric service agreement itself has now been increased from 500 MW to 1 GW.

Muskie also complements TeraWulf’s separate Justified Data Campus in Hawesville, Kentucky, where Anthropic has committed to approximately 401 MW of critical IT capacity under a 20-year lease. That project is targeted to begin delivering capacity in the second half of 2027 and reach full delivery in early 2028.

The broader strategic theme is increasingly clear: TeraWulf is repositioning around large blocks of secured power, high-voltage transmission access and long-duration AI infrastructure deployments. At Muskie, the immediate milestone is not server deployment but the securing and acceleration of the utility infrastructure required to make gigawatt-scale deployment possible.

Core Business — Large-scale digital infrastructure for AI and HPC workloads

Muskie Campus — 1 GW contracted electric service in Grayson, Kentucky; initial ramp targeted for 2028

• July 6, 2026 — TeraWulf Lands $19B Anthropic Lease for 401 MW Kentucky Campus • August 17, 2025 — From Mining to AI: TeraWulf Secures Billions in Contracts, Plots 400 MW Growth

Original · Converge Digest

Front Method

Power & Sites · United States

Data center construction spending hits record $85 billion annual pace

Credited to Tom's Hardware · tomshardware.com · 1d ago

Photograph · Tom's Hardware

Private data center construction spending is up over 73%, from $49.05 billion to $84.95 billion, year over year (YoY), according to the Census Bureau’s detailed construction spending tables for August. Spending is at a record annual pace, and growth is the fastest since April 2025’s +88.2%. Data center buildouts are now about 63% of all private office construction. The report, released last week, uses Census definitions that exclude any value of “racks or servers in data centers” from its construction spending numbers. It also does not speculate on any cause of the spending increase.

The Census data covers the Value of Construction Put in Place, measured monthly, to calculate what a full year would total at that month’s pace. Data center construction is defined as “[including] buildings that contain the hardware needed for storing, processing, and transmitting digital information,” a subcategory of private office. Power plants and transmission lines built to meet data center power demand fall under Census’s separate power category.

The $39.1 billion gap between general office and data center construction spending is the widest in the series since Census data begins in January 2014. The former is at $45.8 billion, down 9.7% YoY and 34.8% since Jan. 2023. Data centers have, in fact, beaten the general office every month since Sept. 2025.

Data center construction now sits at over nine times its Jan. 2021 level of $9.26 billion. Data center construction has become the majority of private office construction, about 63% versus 47% a year earlier, and with forecasts for data center power use still climbing, that is likely to remain the case moving forward.

Private nonresidential construction was at $773.0 billion, down 1.0% YoY, or $688.1 billion and down 5.9% YoY if data centers are excluded. Of the $8.0 billion monthly rise in private nonresidential spending, $5.9 billion or 74% was for data centers. Manufacturing, down 19.8% YoY, fits the same pattern, and data center construction is now about half its size.

Power construction, up 9.7% YoY, is the other big gainer. Taken together, the picture painted is that the construction industry’s growth depends heavily on data center projects. This follows Associated Builders and Contractors chief economist Anirban Basu’s statement in a Sept. 1 release that July’s nonresidential gain was “entirely due to data centers,” and that power’s growth was boosted by their electricity needs.

Growth has gotten faster for four months now. In addition to August’s reported gain, May was +36.3% YoY, June was +55.2%, and July saw +65.3% by our math. As the numbers do not include server spend, which is also growing due to rising hardware costs from AI demand, the Census only shows part of the picture. The acceleration in construction is nevertheless a strong indicator of where things are headed. September’s results are expected on Nov. 2 and may continue the trend.