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Nuclear

Amazon Funds Reactor Plans at Old Indiana Coal Site

Amazon is funding development of a proposed 960-megawatt, 12-reactor plant on a former Indiana coal site and, if built, intends to buy its power under a cost-covering contract.

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Oct. 19 — American Electric Power and X-energy, a Maryland reactor developer, said Monday that they had agreed to study building 12 small nuclear reactors, 960 megawatts in all, on the site of a retired coal plant in Sullivan County, Ind., with Amazon helping to fund the development. Each would be an Xe-100, X-energy’s 80-megawatt design, set in groups of four.The Xe-100A high-temperature, gas-cooled reactor that uses helium as its coolant. Its fuel is of a type called TRISO, for tri-structural isotropic.

If the project reaches a final investment decision and is built, Amazon intends to buy its power under a long-term contract covering the costs of the plant and its operations for the duration of the contract, AEP said. The companies gave no price, construction date or date for first power.

The terms are the point. On the companies’ account, Amazon, not the utility’s other customers, would carry the cost. “Together, we’re looking to develop nearly a gigawatt of carbon-free power for the regional grid and pay our full costs without passing them to others,” Josh Weissman, Amazon’s vice president of data center infrastructure capacity delivery, said in AEP’s release.AMZNNasdaq240.35▼3.44−1.4%Amazon · Friday’s session

Bill Fehrman, AEP’s chief executive, said the agreements “will provide all necessary capital protections and financial safeguards that we have said are essential for any potential nuclear project to move forward.” The plan, he said, is meant to help meet “unprecedented growth in energy demand” while “protecting affordability for existing customers.”

Indiana has already written rules for customers like Amazon. In February 2025 the state’s utility regulators approved terms for connecting data centers and other large customers to the grid of AEP’s Indiana Michigan Power, agreed by the utility with Amazon Data Services, Google, Microsoft and consumer advocates; the utility said the terms would make such customers pay for the grid upgrades needed to serve them. Utility Dive reported that the agreement left the allocation of costs to later proceedings. According to the regulators’ decision, as Utility Dive reported, the utility expected peak load in Indiana to rise to more than 7,000 megawatts by 2030, from 2,800.

Amazon is an investor in X-energy. X-energy said the Indiana plan is the second project under the two companies’ effort to bring more than 5 gigawatts of new nuclear capacity to the U.S. grid by 2039, after Energy Northwest’s Cascade Advanced Energy Facility in Washington State.The PipelineX-energy counts Indiana as its third announced commercial Xe-100 project in the United States and its fourth worldwide, in a commercial pipeline it puts at about 11.5 gigawatts. Amazon has also agreed to buy power from an existing plant: on Sept. 30 it and Constellation Energy announced a 20-year agreement for 690 megawatts from Constellation’s Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant in Maryland, including about 190 megawatts of new capacity that Constellation said would come online between 2030 and 2032.

The companies are evaluating the former site of Indiana Michigan Power’s Breed Generating Station. Sullivan County recently joined the Indiana Advanced Nuclear Ready Communities Program, AEP said. “This project has the potential to create well-paying jobs in Sullivan County, strengthen our electric grid and further position Indiana as a national leader in advanced nuclear energy,” Gov. Mike Braun said in the companies’ releases.

It is a study, not a decision to build, and X-energy’s first plant is still awaiting a federal construction permit. That plant, four reactors to supply power and industrial steam to a Dow manufacturing site on the Texas Gulf Coast, is in the final phases of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s construction-permit review, X-energy says. Among the factors that X-energy’s release said could make actual results differ materially were “the possibility that feasibility work does not support moving forward with the proposed project,” “the failure to achieve milestones or satisfy other conditions to which development funding is subject” and “first-of-a-kind risks.”

The next markers are the commission’s decision on the Texas permit, for which X-energy gave no date, and AEP’s third-quarter earnings call on Oct. 28.

Sources

  1. American Electric Power, “AEP Partners with Amazon and X-energy to Explore Advanced Nuclear Energy in Indiana,” Oct. 19, 2026.
  2. X-energy, “X-energy, Amazon, American Electric Power Partner to Bring SMR Project to Indiana,” Oct. 19, 2026.
  3. American Electric Power, “Investors: Q3 Earnings Webcast, Oct. 28, 2026, 9:00 a.m. ET.”
  4. Constellation Energy, “Constellation and Amazon Announce 20-Year Power Purchase Agreement Adding 190 Megawatts of Nuclear Capacity at Calvert Cliffs,” Sept. 30, 2026.
  5. Utility Dive, “AEP signs 960-MW Indiana nuclear pact with Amazon, X-energy,” Oct. 19, 2026.
  6. Utility Dive, “Indiana regulators approve ‘large load’ interconnection rules,” Feb. 20, 2025.