Google just signed the largest nuclear power purchase agreement in Finland's history to keep a reactor online—and inked an even bigger deal stateside—because America's largest grid operator is now telling data centers to bring their own electricity or risk getting cut off.
The deals lay bare what the green mandarins won't admit: when Big Tech needs power that actually works, it goes nuclear. American families and small businesses stuck on a grid strangled by EPA rulemaking and renewable subsidies just get the rate hikes.
In Finland, Google signed a 507-megawatt, 22-year agreement with Fortum for the Loviisa nuclear plant, according to OilPrice. It is Finland's first nuclear power purchase agreement, and the tenor is more than double the length of recent wind and solar deals. The contract keeps a plant that supplies 10% of the country's electricity from retiring in 2030. Data centers have overtaken manufacturing as Finland's biggest power buyers, and the country is projected to become Europe's fifth-largest data center market by 2035.
Stateside, the picture is uglier. Entrepreneur reports Google signed a deal with Constellation Energy for 3,590 megawatts of nuclear electricity. The agreement locks in 890 megawatts for 20 years from 11 reactors across Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, with another 2,700 megawatts coming over 15 years. Constellation is investing more than $4.3 billion to squeeze more output from its fleet, with the first upgrades ready by 2028.
Why the rush? Prices on PJM Interconnection—the largest grid in the country—have shot up more than 11 times since 2024. The grid is so strained that PJM now wants data centers to supply their own power or face disconnection during peak demand. Constellation CEO Joe Dominguez calls the deal a "model for how technology companies and the energy industry can work together." Investors agree: Constellation shares jumped more than 13% on the news.
OilPrice framed the Finland story as a market evolution—data centers naturally shifting contracting toward baseload supply. Entrepreneur framed the U.S. deal as a proactive tech-energy partnership. What neither outlet lingered on: the reason Big Tech is forced into these arrangements is that the grid can no longer support them. Decades of subsidies for intermittent wind and solar, layered with EPA regulations throttling baseload generation, have left the system without enough firm power. Finland's grid, by contrast, runs on nuclear and is proposing queue reforms that reward dispatchable capacity—exactly the kind of pragmatism American regulators refuse to consider.
Big Tech can write multi-billion-dollar checks to secure its own nuclear supply. Main Street cannot. The question is how long American ratepayers will subsidize a broken system before demanding the same commonsense approach Finland already chose.
