Meta Platforms has signed 20-year agreements to buy nuclear power from three US plants operated by Vistra and to support the development of new nuclear projects, including small modular reactors (SMRs), as the company seeks to secure long-term energy supplies.
The agreements, announced on Friday, cover power purchases from Vistra’s Perry and Davis-Besse nuclear plants in Ohio and the Beaver Valley plant in Pennsylvania, according to a blog post by Meta Platforms. The company said the deals would help finance expansions at the Ohio facilities and extend the operating life of the plants.
The Ohio reactors are licensed to operate until at least 2036, while one of the two reactors at Beaver Valley is licensed through 2047.
Meta also said it would work with two companies planning to build small modular reactors, supporting projects by Oklo and TerraPower, the latter backed by Bill Gates.
Shares in Oklo rose nearly 20% in premarket trading, while Vistra shares were up about 8%.
SMRs are promoted by developers as a potentially lower-cost alternative to conventional reactors because they can be manufactured in factories rather than built entirely on site. Critics, however, argue that they may struggle to achieve the economies of scale of large nuclear plants. There are currently no SMRs in commercial operation in the US, and proposed projects still require regulatory approval.
Joel Kaplan, Meta’s chief global affairs officer, said the new agreements, together with a deal signed last year with Constellation to keep an Illinois reactor operating for 20 years, would “make Meta one of the most significant corporate purchasers of nuclear energy in American history”.
Meta said the various agreements could provide up to 6.6 gigawatts of nuclear power by 2035. A typical nuclear power plant has a capacity of around 1 GW. In 2024, the company had sought expressions of interest from nuclear developers for between 1 GW and 4 GW of capacity.
Under its agreement with TerraPower, Meta will help fund the development of two reactors with a combined capacity of up to 690 megawatts, potentially operational as early as 2032. The deal also gives Meta rights to energy from up to six additional TerraPower reactors by 2035. TerraPower chief executive Chris Levesque said the agreement would support the rapid deployment of new reactors.
Meta said its partnership with Oklo would support the development of up to 1.2 GW of nuclear capacity in Ohio as early as 2030. The backing would help with “early procurement and development”, according to Oklo co-founder and chief executive Jacob DeWitte.
