Constellation signed long-term power purchase agreements during the second quarter of 2026 covering roughly 920 MW of nuclear generation, executives told analysts on the company earnings call. The contracts run 15 to 20 years and take effect between 2029 and 2032.
Walmart was the only customer named. In June the retailer agreed to buy 176 MW from the Dresden nuclear plant in Illinois, primarily to serve a high-technology distribution center. Constellation president and chief executive Joe Dominguez described it as the first nuclear power purchase agreement Walmart has signed. About 890 MW of the total comes from existing generation, and the remainder is tied to a planned 30 MW uprate at Dresden.
Dominguez said existing plants and infrastructure will carry the early phase of data center growth, arguing that interconnection queues would stall if every new facility waited for new plants to be finished.
The restart of Three Mile Island Unit 1, renamed the Crane Clean Energy Center in Pennsylvania, cleared two regulatory steps during the quarter. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved a fuel license amendment and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission granted a waiver request. Dominguez said those approvals point toward a restart in the second half of 2027.
Constellation also filed subsequent license renewal applications for two of its three New York plants. The company submitted an application for the single-unit Ginna plant in June, and the NRC accepted the Nine Mile Point 1 application in April.
The nuclear fleet produced 44,160 gigawatt-hours in the second quarter, down from 45,170 gigawatt-hours a year earlier. Capacity factor measured 93 percent against 94.8 percent in the same quarter of 2025, with 86 planned refueling outage days compared with 41.
Source: American Nuclear Society - https://www.ans.org/news/2026-08-13/article-8291/secondquarter-updates-from-constellation-new-ppas-crane-restart-and-more/