The U.S. Department of Energy has made a conditional commitment to lend Vistra Corp. $4.2 billion for nuclear fleet improvements in Pennsylvania and Ohio. The loan would finance 433 MW of power uprates at the Perry and Davis-Besse plants in Ohio and Beaver Valley in Pennsylvania, while also supporting the continued operation of roughly 4 GW of existing nuclear capacity. DOE says the investments would help meet growing electricity demand across the PJM Interconnection without requiring new transmission corridors or equivalent new generation resources.
The loan is part of DOE’s Office of Energy Dominance Financing, formerly the Loan Programs Office. It includes an option to finance future uprates at Vistra’s Comanche Peak plant in Texas. Vistra announced in January that it was pursuing the uprates in connection with a 2.6 GW power purchase agreement with Meta, which will receive specific capacity and uprate energy from Perry, Davis-Besse, and Beaver Valley.
DOE emphasized that the commitment is not final. Vistra must satisfy technical, legal, environmental, and financial conditions before the department enters into definitive financing documents and funds the loan. The project is also intended to extend the plants’ operation for 20 years beyond their current licenses.