The US Department of Energy has lent NextEra Energy up to $1.9bn to restart the Duane Arnold Energy Center. It is Iowa’s only nuclear power plant. Most of its power is already sold to Google, under a 25-year deal to supply the company’s cloud and AI infrastructure in the state.
The department’s Office of Energy Dominance Financing announced the financial close on 8 September. The restart still needs approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). NextEra expects the plant back online around the end of 2028 or early 2029.
Duane Arnold first opened in 1975 and had a licence to run until 2034, the Washington Examiner reported. It stopped operating in 2020, after a storm damaged the site. It will return with 615 megawatts of capacity, 14 megawatts more than before, TechCrunch’s Tim De Chant reported. The department says that is enough to power nearly 500,000 homes.
What the government says it buys
The department expects nearly 1,500 jobs during construction. It says more than 450 will remain once the plant is running. It framed the loan as part of President Trump’s push to expand nuclear power.
