NextEra ‘Very Interested’ in Reviving Closed Iowa Nuclear Plant

(Bloomberg) -- NextEra Energy is evaluating the restart of its shuttered Duane Arnold nuclear plant in Iowa, according to chief executive officer John Ketchum.

“We are very interested in recommissioning the plant,” Ketchum said Wednesday during an earnings conference call. He declined to put a price tag on the effort. 

The comments come amid surging US demand for electricity, as technology companies develop power-hungry data centers and as more of the global economy electrifies to rein in climate change.

Rival Constellation Energy Corporation announced last month plans to restart the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania to supply Microsoft Corporation data centers. 

“It goes without saying, there’s very strong interest from customers, data center customers in particular, in that site,” Ketchum said. “We’re in a period of substantial power demand.”

Still, the company stressed that it’s also seeing power demand from outside the technology industry. NextEra announced incremental framework agreements with two Fortune 50 customers to potentially develop as much as 10.5 GW of renewables and storage projects through 2030.

Rebecca Kujawa, president of NextEra Energy Partners, declined to identify the customers, but said they’re not technology companies.

Related:Microsoft Deal Would Reopen Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant To Power AI

“This is a robust sign of a significant, broad-based demand,” she said on the call. “They have big, important and urgent energy needs.”

The 600 MW Duane Arnold nuclear plant shut down in 2020 after its biggest customer opted to exit its power-purchase agreement. It was also damaged in a windstorm that same year, prompting the company to close the facility two months earlier than planned.  

The facility went into service in 1974 and uses an older technology than many of the nuclear plants that are still in service in the US. That means the components are “less complex” and may make it easier to revive the facility, Ketchum said. 

“That gives us optimism about being able to do this at an attractive price,” he said. 

Still, bringing the facility back into service would be costly, and there’s no guarantee the economics of the project would be justified, according to Julien Dumoulin Smith, an analyst with Jefferies & Company. 

“We believe a Duane Arnold restart is challenging, given the plant damage and robust regional wind generation,” Smith wrote in a research note.