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Power

Washington Offers Up to $5 Billion for Reactor Uprates

The Energy Department conditionally committed to lend Constellation up to $5 billion to wring nearly 1.1 gigawatts more from eight nuclear plants.

BALTIMORE, Oct. 27 — The Energy Department on Tuesday conditionally committed to lend Constellation Energy up to $5 billion for uprates, upgrades that get more electricity out of reactors already running, at eight of its nuclear plants in Illinois, Maryland and Pennsylvania. The department says the work will add nearly 1.1 gigawatts.

It is a promise with conditions, not yet a loan. Constellation must satisfy “certain technical, legal, environmental, and financial conditions” before the department enters into definitive financing documents and funds the loan, the department said.

The commitment “does not, by itself, represent a final Constellation decision to proceed with any individual uprate or at every facility under consideration,” the company said, and neither it nor the department gave an interest rate, a term or a date. The eight are Braidwood, Byron, Clinton, Dresden, LaSalle and Quad Cities in Illinois, Calvert Cliffs in Maryland and Limerick in Pennsylvania. The added power would be in the PJM and MISO grid regions, the department said.

Uprates are “one of the fastest and most cost-effective ways to add dependable power without building entirely new generation facilities or transmission corridors,” Constellation said.The UprateThe work means modernizing and upgrading turbines, steam generators and digital control systems at operating plants, Google and Constellation said on Oct. 6, without the multi-year timelines and grid-connection bottlenecks of building on a new site.

Constellation already has buyers for power from uprates. “Recent 20-year agreements with Google and Amazon have incentivized Constellation to invest more than $7 billion to add approximately 1,080 megawatts of nuclear capacity,” it said, and an agreement with Meta supports a further 30 megawatts at Clinton.The 1,080 MegawattsGoogle’s agreement, announced Oct. 6, is for 890 megawatts from uprates at 11 units in Illinois, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the first expected by 2028. Amazon’s, announced Sept. 30, is for about 190 megawatts at Calvert Cliffs, coming online between 2030 and 2032. Neither Tuesday release says how much of the department’s 1.1 gigawatts those contracts account for.

“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 chief executive, in the company’s statement. The department said the loan advances an executive order of President Trump’s that calls for it to facilitate 5 gigawatts of uprates at existing reactors.

After the market closed on Tuesday, Baker Hughes said it had booked an order for about as much power again from gas turbines, approximately 1.1 gigawatts, for an unnamed “major U.S. technology company’s development for advanced computing.” The 34 Frame 5 and nine NovaLT16 turbines, with generators, are to serve “AI model training, inference, and physical AI workloads.”

Its quarterly results, filed the same evening, listed a second order of the kind: 18 Frame 5 turbine generator packages, about 500 megawatts, “to support data center projects for a U.S. energy company.” Orders for the quarter totaled $10.8 billion, up 31 percent from a year earlier. Citing demand from data centers, space, LNG and gas infrastructure, Baker Hughes raised its full-year order guidance for its Industrial & Energy Technology division, which booked both orders, and lifted the division’s order outlook for 2026 through 2028 to more than $50 billion. GAAP net income attributable to Baker Hughes fell 33 percent, to $411 million.

Constellation’s shares closed Tuesday at $258.98, up 2.57 percent. Baker Hughes’s closed at $59.00, up 5.34 percent, before either of its releases.

GE Vernova, in an 8-K accepted by the S.E.C. at 6:16 a.m. Eastern on Wednesday, said its gas-power equipment backlog and slot reservation agreements, which customers convert into orders, grew to 122 gigawatts from 116 in the third quarter; it now expects at least 130 gigawatts by year-end, against at least 125 in July. Its orders rose 96 percent organically, to $29.3 billion. Vertiv, which makes power and cooling equipment for data centers, said in an 8-K accepted at 6:02 a.m. that its organic orders grew more than 100 percent from a year earlier, and raised its full-year sales guidance by $650 million.

Constellation stands to borrow more cheaply: the loan “could lower financing costs,” it said. If the loan is made, the government is the lender, and Constellation says generation backed by large customers “flows to the regional grid and benefits all customers.”

Next come the definitive loan documents, for which no date was given; GE Vernova’s webcast at 7:30 a.m. Eastern on Wednesday and Baker Hughes’s call at 9:30; and, on Thursday, PJM Interconnection’s planned filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on its reliability backstop.

Sources

  1. Constellation, “Constellation Secures Conditional DOE Loan Commitment of up to $5 Billion to Expand Nuclear Output,” Oct. 27, 2026.
  2. U.S. Department of Energy, “Energy Department Announces $5 Billion Loan to Boost Nuclear Power and Help Lower Costs in Illinois, Maryland, and Pennsylvania,” Oct. 27, 2026.
  3. Baker Hughes (SEC Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1), “Baker Hughes Announces Third-Quarter 2026 Results,” Oct. 27, 2026.
  4. Baker Hughes, via GlobeNewswire (Stock Titan copy), “Major U.S. Technology Company Selects Baker Hughes’ Power Generation and Cooling Solutions to Scale High-density AI Compute,” Oct. 27, 2026.
  5. GE Vernova (SEC Form 8-K, Exhibit 99), “GE Vernova reports strong third quarter 2026 financial performance, raises 2026 guidance, and increases share repurchase authorization,” Oct. 28, 2026.
  6. GE Vernova (SEC Form 8-K, Exhibit 99), “GE Vernova reports second quarter 2026 financial results and raises 2026 financial guidance,” July 22, 2026.
  7. GE Vernova, “GE Vernova to announce third quarter 2026 financial results on October 28,” Oct. 13, 2026.
  8. Vertiv (SEC Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1), “Vertiv Reports Strong Third Quarter 2026 with Net Sales Growth of 61%, Organic Orders Growth over 100% and Diluted EPS Growth of 91% (Adjusted Diluted EPS Growth of 78%); Raises Full Year 2026 Guidance Across All Key Metrics,” Oct. 28, 2026.
  9. GE Vernova (SEC EDGAR), “Form 8-K filing index, accepted Oct. 28, 2026, 6:16:59 a.m.,” Oct. 28, 2026.
  10. Vertiv (SEC EDGAR), “Form 8-K filing index, accepted Oct. 28, 2026, 6:02:00 a.m.,” Oct. 28, 2026.
  11. Constellation and Google, “Google and Constellation Announce Landmark Agreement to Bring 890 MW of New Nuclear Capacity to PJM Grid as Part of Long-Term Power Deal,” Oct. 6, 2026.
  12. Constellation and Amazon, “Constellation and Amazon Announce 20-Year Power Purchase Agreement Adding 190 Megawatts of Nuclear Capacity at Calvert Cliffs,” Sept. 30, 2026.
  13. PJM Interconnection, “Tariff, Section 9.2(b) Stakeholder Consultation of Upcoming 205 Filing on Reliability Backstop Procurement (Special Members Committee presentation),” Oct. 22, 2026.
  14. Yahoo Finance, “Constellation Energy (CEG), daily chart data,” Oct. 27, 2026.
  15. Yahoo Finance, “Baker Hughes (BKR), daily chart data,” Oct. 27, 2026.
  16. Nasdaq, “Constellation Energy (CEG), daily historical closes,” Oct. 27, 2026.
  17. Nasdaq, “Baker Hughes (BKR), daily historical closes,” Oct. 27, 2026.