The Department of Energy (DOE) has offered Constellation Energy a conditional loan commitment of up to $5 billion to finance nuclear power uprates and modernization at eight plants in Illinois, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. The proposed investments could add nearly 1.1 GW of generating capacity to the nation’s existing nuclear fleet.
The commitment marks the agency’s second major nuclear uprate financing offer this month and is poised to advance its Utility Power Reactor Incremental Scaling Effort (UPRISE), which has now identified approximately 4.7 GW of potential nuclear capacity additions toward a 5-GW target.
The DOE’s Office of Energy Dominance Financing (EDF) announced the commitment on Oct. 27 during Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s visit to Constellation’s Byron Generating Station in Illinois. The financing would support potential uprates at eight nuclear plants comprising 15 operating reactors, representing approximately 15.5 GW of net generating capacity attributable to Constellation’s ownership interests, according to its 2025 annual report.
The proposed EDF financing portfolio includes three pressurized water reactor (PWR) facilities, comprising six reactors: Braidwood (2,386 MW) and Byron (2,350 MW) in Illinois, and Calvert Cliffs (1,789 MW) in Maryland. The remaining five facilities operate nine boiling water reactors (BWRs): Clinton (1,092 MW), Dresden (1,845 MW), LaSalle (2,320 MW), and Quad Cities (1,403 MW) in Illinois, and Limerick (2,315 MW) in Pennsylvania. Constellation, notably, owns 75% of Quad Cities.
The proposed investments are geared to expand nuclear output across the PJM Interconnection and Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) regions, where DOE suggested additional generation would strengthen grid reliability. Both regions have faced reliability pressures that prompted DOE emergency orders this year. Most recently, on Oct. 12, DOE authorized PJM to dispatch additional generation as needed amid elevated maintenance outages and tightening reserve margins. The agency has also ordered several fossil-fired plants in the two regions to remain available, including Constellation’s Eddystone units in Pennsylvania.
However, the proposed nuclear uprates would provide longer-term capacity additions. Constellation’s previously announced Google-backed projects are expected to begin delivering additional capacity in 2028 and be completed by the end of 2032. Its Amazon-backed uprate at Calvert Cliffs is scheduled for 2030 to 2032.
DOE said the commitment also includes an option to finance additional uprate projects at other Constellation facilities. However, the agency cautioned: “While this conditional commitment indicates DOE’s intent to provide a loan, Constellation must satisfy certain technical, legal, environmental, and financial conditions before the Department enters into definitive financing documents and funds the loan.” Separately, Constellation emphasized that the commitment does not constitute a final investment decision for any individual uprate or guarantee that projects will proceed at every facility under consideration.
Federal Financing Builds on Constellation’s Customer-Backed Nuclear Uprates
The conditional loan commitment could provide an additional source of financing for Constellation’s expanding nuclear uprate program, which is already supported by multibillion-dollar investments tied to long-term electricity purchase agreements with major technology companies.
In its Oct. 27 announcement, Constellation said its recent 20-year agreements with Google and Amazon have incentivized more than $7 billion in investments to add approximately 1,080 MW of nuclear generating capacity. A separate agreement with Meta, announced in 2025, supports a 30-MW expansion at Clinton in Illinois.
The commercial arrangements provide long-term revenue certainty for investments that would increase electrical output from existing reactors. Constellation has said the proposed federal financing could reduce borrowing costs and potentially accelerate development or support a broader portfolio of projects.
“This is how America wins the race for energy abundance – by pairing private-sector demand and investment with smart federal financing to unlock more power from the nuclear plants we already have,” said Joe Dominguez, Constellation’s chairman, president, and CEO. “Our agreements with Google and Amazon demonstrate how long-term customer commitments can incentivize billions of dollars in investment in new, reliable nuclear capacity. This conditional loan commitment can help us move faster and go further, putting more reliable power on the grid, creating and preserving good-paying jobs, strengthening American energy security and helping families and businesses manage energy costs.”
As POWER reported on Oct. 7, Google’s 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) supports approximately $4.3 billion of investments to add 890 MW at 11 nuclear units across six sites in PJM. The proposed upgrades would increase thermal and electrical efficiency through equipment modernization, including improvements to turbines, steam-cycle systems, and plant controls.
The six facilities previously identified as likely participants in the Google agreement were Braidwood, Byron, LaSalle, Quad Cities, and Limerick, along with Salem in New Jersey. Five are included in DOE’s newly announced financing portfolio. Salem, which is operated by PSEG and in which Constellation holds a 42.59% ownership interest, is not on the DOE list. However, Constellation has not publicly confirmed how Google’s 890 MW will be distributed among the participating reactors.
The DOE portfolio also includes facilities associated with other customer agreements. Amazon’s 20-year PPA supports an approximately 190-MW expansion at Calvert Cliffs, while Meta’s agreement underpins 30 MW of additional capacity at Clinton. Dresden is covered by a 176-MW agreement with Walmart that includes 30 MW of planned uprates.
The scope of the proposed federal financing, for now, remains unclear, particularly given its overlap with Constellation’s existing customer-backed uprate commitments.
The proposed uprates would entail varying degrees of engineering modifications and Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) licensing requirements, depending on reactor design, existing equipment, and the scope of each capacity increase. As POWER previously reported, UPRISE encompasses operational and balance-of-plant improvements, measurement uncertainty recapture (MUR) uprates, and more extensive power uprates that can increase licensed reactor thermal power by as much as 20%.
According to the NRC’s expected-applications list, updated Sept. 8, Constellation is expected to submit 12 power uprate applications between the fourth quarter of 2026 and the end of 2030, including five extended power uprates (EPUs) and seven MUR uprates. However, the NRC lists the individual plants as proprietary, so the anticipated applications cannot yet be matched to the eight facilities covered by DOE’s conditional financing commitment.
DOE’s Nuclear Uprate Financing Push Expands
Constellation’s conditional commitment follows a similar Oct. 5 offer to Vistra of up to $4.2 billion for uprates and modernization at Beaver Valley (1,872 MW) in Pennsylvania and Davis-Besse (908 MW) and Perry (1,268 MW) in Ohio. DOE said the projects could add 433 MW of nuclear capacity while preserving more than 4 GW of existing generation. The planned uprates comprise 213 MW at Perry, 80 MW at Davis-Besse, and 70 MW at each of Beaver Valley’s two reactors.
As POWER previously reported, Vistra plans combined EPUs and MUR improvements across all four reactors, targeting thermal power increases of 16% at Perry, 6.9% at Beaver Valley, and 7% at Davis-Besse. Perry’s modifications could include a new cooling tower and major turbine-generator upgrades. The projects are supported by 20-year PPAs with Meta, which will purchase the additional output along with approximately 2.18 GW of existing generation from Perry and Davis-Besse. Vistra expects the uprates to enter service between 2031 and 2034.
Combined, the Constellation and Vistra conditional loan commitments total up to $9.2 billion and could support approximately 1.5 GW of additional nuclear capacity. Neither financing package has been finalized yet, however.
DOE has also advanced nuclear uprate financing through a broader $26.5 billion loan package closed with Southern Co. in February. That financing is slated to support projects across Georgia Power and Alabama Power, including nuclear generation upgrades and license renewals, as well as natural gas generation, hydropower modernization, and transmission improvements.
Under the package, EDF initiated federal historic-preservation consultations on Sept. 1 for proposed extended power uprates at Georgia Power’s Hatch Units 1 and 2 (1,832 MW) and Vogtle Units 1 and 2 (2,430 MW). The proposed modifications would add approximately 95 MW at Hatch and 106 MW at Vogtle, increasing generating capacity to 1,927 MW and 2,536 MW, respectively, according to DOE’s project documents. At Hatch, the work would involve replacing the steam dryer, modifying neutron monitoring equipment, and upgrading 16 balance-of-plant systems and components. The Vogtle project entails modifications to 10 balance-of-plant systems, including turbine, feedwater, cooling, and electrical equipment. Georgia Power anticipates submitting NRC license amendment requests for Hatch in the third quarter of 2027 and Vogtle in the fourth quarter of 2028. Both projects remain subject to individual financing reviews under the existing federal loan guarantee agreement.
In September, notably, Georgia Power and Google announced an agreement to support uprates at Hatch and Vogtle that would add approximately 96 MW of nuclear generating capacity. Under the arrangement, Google would subscribe to a proposed nuclear uprate tariff and receive zero-emission credits associated with the additional generation. Georgia Power said the arrangement could provide approximately $900 million in benefits to utility customers over the remaining lives of the reactors, subject to regulatory approval.
UPRISE Identifies 4.7 GW of Potential Nuclear Capacity
In an Oct. 27 fact sheet, DOE said UPRISE has identified approximately 4.7 GW of potential nuclear capacity additions, approaching its 5-GW target for 2029. The program also established an interim target of 2.5 GW by 2027. Although the underlying May 2025 executive order called for 5 GW of uprates at existing reactors, DOE’s current project portfolio also includes the restart of previously retired nuclear plants.
DOE’s fact sheet identifies six major project groups contributing to the reported total:
- Constellation Energy: Nearly 1.1 GW of potential uprates at eight facilities, supported by the newly announced conditional loan commitment of up to $5 billion.
- Vistra: 433 MW of planned uprates at Beaver Valley, Davis-Besse, and Perry, supported by an Oct. 5 conditional loan commitment of up to $4.2 billion.
- Southern Co.: More than 300 MW of potential nuclear uprates identified by DOE under its Southern financing program, associated with a $26.5 billion loan package closed in February 2026 that also supports license extensions at Hatch and Farley.
- Palisades Nuclear Plant, Michigan: An 800-MW restart supported by a $1.5 billion DOE loan to Holtec.
- Crane Clean Energy Center, Pennsylvania: An 835-MW restart supported by $1 billion in DOE financing to Constellation.
- Duane Arnold Energy Center, Iowa: A 615-MW restart supported by $1.9 billion in DOE financing to NextEra Energy.
Combined, the three reactor restarts account for approximately 2.25 GW of the identified capacity. However, the six project groups explicitly itemized in DOE’s fact sheet total approximately 4.1 GW, roughly 600 MW short of the agency’s reported 4.7-GW figure. DOE did not explain the difference. The more than 300 MW attributed to Southern also exceeds the approximately 201 MW specified in the September Hatch and Vogtle project documents, although DOE has identified additional future nuclear upgrades under Southern’s financing program.
Project schedules also extend beyond UPRISE’s original milestones: Constellation’s uprates are expected to continue through 2032, while Vistra anticipates completing its projects as late as 2034.
When UPRISE launched in March, former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Rian Bahran told POWER that federal engagement was intended to accelerate projects beyond what industry would otherwise accomplish independently. He estimated that DOE’s involvement could enable additional capacity exceeding 1 GW by 2027 and 1 GW by 2029 relative to an industry-only development scenario. Bahran also outlined efforts to address engineering capacity, long-lead equipment procurement, regulatory coordination, and financing, including DOE-facilitated connections between nuclear operators and large electricity customers.
Separately, DOE is also pursuing new nuclear construction through its $17.5 billion American Nuclear Supply Chain Loans initiative, which would finance advance equipment procurement for five eligible projects. The agency said the initiative could accelerate deployment of 10 new reactors by up to three years.
Wright is scheduled to visit Palisades on Oct. 29 as DOE continues to highlight the restart and uprate projects supported by its financing programs.
—Sonal Patel is senior editor at POWER magazine (@sonalcpatel, @POWERmagazine).
