How Are Hyperscalers Securing Power? – Gas, Nuclear and Grid Deals
For most of the cloud era, big tech companies bought power the way everyone else did. They paid the local utility's tariff and bought renewable energy credits on the side. That stopped working once single campuses wanted hundreds of megawatts in two years. Now the largest buyers restart nuclear units, pay for new gas plants and sign contracts for reactors that do not exist yet. Hyperscaler power deals make more sense sorted by type than by company. How are hyperscalers actually securing power, and how does each kind of deal work?
Hyperscalers are securing power through a handful of repeatable deal types: long-term contracts with existing nuclear plants (including restarts), agreements for future small modular reactors, utility-built gas plants dedicated to a campus, on-site gas generation, special utility tariffs, and clean firm resources such as geothermal and long-duration storage. Existing nuclear delivers firm carbon-free power quickly but in limited supply, gas is the fastest route to large firm capacity, and reactors and new geothermal are longer bets. Most large companies use several at once.
Why Are Hyperscalers Signing Their Own Power Deals?
Because the grid cannot add capacity as fast as they want to build. A large campus can be designed and built in two or three years, while new transmission, substations and power plants often take longer. Interconnection queues are crowded, turbine order books are full, and utilities have to protect their other customers from paying for loads that might not show up.
Carbon goals add a second layer. Many of the largest cloud companies have public clean energy targets, and some have moved from matching annual consumption with renewable credits toward matching hour by hour. That pushes them toward firm, carbon-free sources like nuclear and geothermal, not just more solar and wind.
The result is a new kind of buyer: one that will sign a 20-year contract, prepay for upgrades or fund a utility's new plant in exchange for speed and certainty.
What Types of Hyperscaler Power Deals Are There?
Most hyperscaler power deals fit into six buckets. The table summarizes them; the sections below explain how each one works.
| Deal type | How it works | Speed to power |
|---|---|---|
| Existing nuclear PPA or restart | Long-term contract for output from a running or restarted reactor | Fast to moderate |
| SMR or advanced reactor agreement | Offtake or development deal for reactors not yet built | Slow (2030s) |
| Utility-built gas plant | Utility builds new generation tied to the campus, approved by regulators | Moderate |
| Behind-the-meter gas | Turbines or engines on site, sometimes as bridge power | Fastest |
| Special tariff or contract | Customer-specific rates with minimum payments and exit fees | Depends on grid upgrades |
| Geothermal, storage and energy parks | Clean firm supply or co-located generation built alongside load | Moderate to slow |
How Do Nuclear PPAs and Restarts Work?
The buyer signs a long-term power purchase agreement (PPA) for the output of an existing reactor, or for one being brought back into service. Nuclear plants run around the clock and produce no carbon at the stack, which makes them the closest thing to an ideal supply for a data center with a clean energy goal.
The best-known example is the Crane Clean Energy Center. In September 2024, Constellation announced a 20-year PPA with Microsoft to restart Three Mile Island Unit 1, about 835 MW, with the plant expected at the time to be back online in 2028. Amazon has gone a different route with Talen Energy, buying the Cumulus campus next to the Susquehanna plant in Pennsylvania and later signing a supply agreement for 1,920 MW from Susquehanna through 2042.
The catch is supply. There are only so many reactors, fewer still that can be restarted, and grid operators and regulators watch closely when a big buyer locks up output that other customers used to share.
What Is Co-Location at a Power Plant?
Co-location means building the data center right next to an existing power plant and feeding it directly, sometimes with little or no use of the transmission grid. On paper it is the quickest way to tap a big, firm source. In practice it raises hard questions about who pays for grid services the campus still relies on.
The Talen and Amazon story shows how this plays out. The original Susquehanna arrangement relied on serving the campus from the plant side, and in November 2024 the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) rejected an amended interconnection agreement that would have expanded it. The parties later restructured, and the 2025 supply agreement moved to a front-of-the-meter arrangement through the grid.
FERC then took up the wider issue for the PJM region. In December 2025 it found PJM's rules for co-located loads unjust and unreasonable and ordered new transmission service options, including firm and non-firm contract demand services. Rules are still settling, so anyone planning a co-located campus should check with counsel and the grid operator early.
What Are SMR and Advanced Reactor Agreements?
These are contracts for nuclear plants that are still being designed, licensed or built. In October 2024, Google signed an agreement with Kairos Power for up to 500 MW of small modular reactor (SMR) capacity, with the first reactor targeted by 2030 and more through 2035.
Deals like this are as much about helping a technology reach commercial scale as about buying electricity. The buyer gives a developer a committed customer, which helps with financing and licensing. Power arrives in the 2030s at best, so these agreements do not solve today's shortage. I treat SMR deals as long-term options, not near-term supply.
How Do Utility-Built Gas Plants for a Campus Work?
The utility builds new gas generation sized for the campus, regulators approve the plan and the data center owner agrees to terms meant to protect other ratepayers. This keeps the power plant inside the regulated utility system while giving the customer a dedicated path to firm capacity.
The clearest recent case is in Louisiana. In August 2025, the state Public Service Commission approved three Entergy gas plants totaling about 2.3 GW for Meta's Richland Parish data center, expected online in 2028 and 2029, alongside up to 1,500 MW of solar.
Gas plants built this way deliver large firm capacity faster than most alternatives, but they face the same turbine backlog as everyone else and draw opposition over emissions and long-term cost risk.
Where Does Behind-the-Meter Gas Fit?
Behind-the-meter (BTM) gas means turbines or reciprocating engines on the data center site, serving the load directly. It is the fastest way to get large blocks of power, because it skips much of the grid upgrade process, though it still needs gas supply and air permits.
Many developers use it as bridge power: run on-site generation for a few years, then shift to the grid when the utility connection arrives and keep the plant as backup. Others plan it as permanent supply. The most visible example is xAI's Memphis site, where local regulators in 2025 permitted 15 permanent gas turbines totaling 247.2 MW after a period of controversy over temporary units.
Fuel cells are a quieter variation on the same idea. In November 2024, Bloom Energy announced an agreement with utility AEP to procure up to 1 GW of solid oxide fuel cells for large customers, including data centers, with an initial 100 MW order. Fuel cells run on natural gas without combustion, which can ease air permitting, though they cost more per kilowatt than engines.
From an operator's view, BTM shifts reliability onto the owner. You now run a power plant, with its own maintenance windows, spare parts and middle-of-the-night trips.
What Are Special Utility Contracts and Large Load Tariffs?
These are customer-specific rate deals for very large loads, usually with minimum payment commitments and exit fees so other customers are not stuck with the cost if the data center leaves. Hyperscalers increasingly sign these as the price of getting a grid connection at all.
Ohio offers a widely cited example. In July 2025, state regulators approved an AEP Ohio tariff requiring new data centers over 25 MW to pay for at least 85 percent of their subscribed capacity for up to 12 years, with a ramp period and exit fees. Berkeley Lab's September 2026 review counted 24 states that had approved at least one large load tariff.
These deals do not add generation by themselves, but they decide who pays for the upgrades, and they increasingly shape where hyperscalers choose to build.
What About Geothermal, Storage and Energy Parks?
These are the clean firm and co-location deals that sit between renewables and nuclear. Google has led on geothermal with Fervo Energy, starting with a 115 MW Nevada agreement in 2024 and expanding in September 2026 to a 396 MW PPA at Fervo's Cape Station project in Utah.
Storage is getting similar attention. In March 2026, Energy-Storage.News reported plans for a 300 MW, 30 gigawatt-hour (GWh) Form Energy iron-air battery at Google's Pine Island, Minnesota, data center in Xcel Energy territory, designed to discharge for about 100 hours. Google has also announced plans with Intersect Power and TPG for industrial parks that co-locate gigawatt-scale data centers with new clean generation.
These models promise cleaner firm power but carry technology and timing risk, so most buyers pair them with more conventional supply.
How Should You Read a Hyperscaler Power Deal Announcement?
Read it slowly and ask what is actually committed. A few questions sort the real from the aspirational:
- Is the number in megawatts of capacity or megawatt-hours of energy?
- Does "up to" describe a firm contract or an option?
- Is the power physically delivered to the campus, or is it a financial contract on the grid?
- Does the deal add new generation, or shift existing output from other customers?
- What has to happen first: licensing, permits, turbine delivery, transmission?
Those questions matter for anyone building a data center power forecast. Announced deals feed directly into utility and analyst projections, and double-counting or optimistic dates are a big reason projections diverge. Our guide to data center power forecasts explains how to read them.
Following the Hyperscaler Power Deals as They Land
Once you sort hyperscaler power deals by type, the flood of announcements gets much easier to read. Every one of them is an answer to the same question, how to get firm power faster than the grid can deliver it, and the type tells you how much speed, cost and carbon risk the buyer accepted.
The individual deals change month to month, and announcements age fast. When a new one lands, check three things before you count it: the capacity and the date it is due, whether a contract is signed, and whether anything is under construction or it is still a press release.