The US Department of Energy will lend Constellation Energy $1 billion to restart the former Three Mile Island Unit 1 reactor, now branded the Crane Clean Energy Center. The loan could cover most of the estimated $1.6 billion project cost, positioning the plant to supply Microsoft’s regional data centers under a 20-year power purchase agreement.
The loan will be advanced in tranches, with the first disbursement to Constellation expected in Q1 2026, according to senior adviser Greg Beard. The federal financing is structured to lower Constellation’s cost of capital on a project that officials say the company could have completed without government help, explicitly targeting lower electricity costs for customers on the PJM Interconnection grid that serves more than 65 million people across 13 states.
Crane Clean Energy Center is slated to return to commercial service in 2027, eight years after Three Mile Island Unit 1 ceased operations in 2019 amid a wave of shutdowns driven by cheap natural gas. The single 835-megawatt reactor previously generated enough power for more than 800,000 homes and is already 80% staffed, with 500 full time employees on site, according to Constellation’s disclosures.
The restart is underpinned by a long term offtake deal with Microsoft, which agreed in September 2024 to a 20-year contract for as much carbon free output as the plant can provide to support its rapidly growing data center load in the region. Under that arrangement, Constellation will sell power into PJM while structuring the Microsoft agreement to effectively dedicate Crane’s output to the company’s cloud and artificial intelligence infrastructure.
From the government side, Beard framed the loan as a ratepayer protection tool rather than a rescue package, arguing that cheaper project finance will translate into lower wholesale power prices on PJM. He told reporters that Constellation provided guarantees intended to shield taxpayers, while Energy Secretary Chris Wright has signaled that the Loan Programs Office will direct most of its remaining capacity toward nuclear.
The Three Mile Island financing slots into a growing federal portfolio of nuclear restarts that now spans at least three shuttered plants targeting operation this decade subject to NRC approvals. The Energy Department is already backing Holtec International’s restart of the Palisades plant in Michigan with a $1.5 billion loan, and NextEra Energy has announced plans to restart Iowa’s Duane Arnold facility through an agreement with Alphabet’s Google unit.
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