Google Just Bet 20 Years On Constellation Energy's Reactors: Nuclear Stocks Rally

America’s largest power grid is 6,831 megawatts short of the electricity it needs later this decade. Big Tech is not waiting. On Tuesday, Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) signed a 20-year agreement with Constellation Energy Corp. (NASDAQ:CEG) to add 890 megawatts of new nuclear capacity to the PJM Interconnection grid. Six days earlier, Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) had signed its own 20-year deal with the company, adding another 190 megawatts. Together, the two contracts fund 1,080 megawatts of new power. That equals about 16% of the shortfall PJM identified after its latest capacity auction. Constellation shares rose 8.4% to $289.98 in premarket trading. Nuclear stocks rallied with it. Yet, even after this jump, CEG shares are still down 17.9% this year. So why are investors still hesitating on a company that tech giants keep choosing? From Buying Old Reactors To Paying For Bigger Ones In September 2024, Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) signed a 20-year deal with Constellation to restart a reactor at Three Mile Island, which had been shut down in 2019. The stock jumped 22.3% in a single session on Sept. 20, 2024. At the time, the message was simple. Tech companies would pay for nuclear power, and they would sign for decades. Since then, however, the politics have changed. Electricity bills in the PJM region rose as data centers multiplied. In January 2026, the Trump administration and Mid-Atlantic governors unveiled a plan to limit power price increases in the region. As a result, the pressure shifted to the buyers. PJM has proposed a “Bring Your Own Power” approach, in which large users pay for new supply instead of drawing on power that households already rely on. That is exactly what the two new deals do. How The Amazon And Google Deals Add New Power Both agreements rely on so-called uprates. An uprate gets more electricity out of a reactor that already exists. The process works in simple steps. First, the operator replaces turbines, steam generators and digital controls. Then the plant converts more of its heat into electricity. Finally, the extra power flows to the same grid connection the plant already has. That last step is the key. A brand-new power plant can wait years in line to connect to the grid. An existing reactor skips the line. Amazon’s deal, announced Sept. 30, covers 690 megawatts from the Calvert Cliffs Clean Energy Center, Maryland’s only nuclear plant. That includes a 190-megawatt uprate due between 2030 and 2032 and more than $3 billion of investment. Google’s Deal is Larger Google’s deal with Constellation funds uprates at 11 reactors in Illinois, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, with the first expected by 2028. Constellation said the program represents more than $4.3 billion of new investment. In addition, Google signed a 15-year supply agreement covering 2,700 megawatts from Constellation’s existing PJM fleet, plus a five-year technology alliance built on Google Cloud. “This long-term clean energy collaboration with Google can serve as a model for how technology companies and the energy industry can work together,” Joe Dominguez, Constellation’s chairman and CEO, said in the release. Read Also: Vistra Gets $4.2B Federal Loan to Add Nuclear Power Meta Already Bought Why The Stock Is Still Down In 2026 The contracts answer one question: will tech companies keep paying for nuclear power? They do not answer a second one: how fast can that power reach the grid? On that front, the calendar is long. Google’s first uprate arrives in 2028. Amazon’s arrives as late as 2032. Meanwhile, PJM has warned that the restarted Three Mile Island reactor may not reconnect until 2031. Consequently, Constellation trades 29.7% below its 52-week high of $412.70 Nuclear Peers Move Higher Too Tuesday’s rally in CEG shares spread across independent power producers in premarket trading. CompanyPremarket pricePremarket changeConstellation Energy Corp.$289.98+8.36%Vistra Corp. (NYSE:VST)$151.25+4.39%Talen Energy Corp. (NASDAQ:TLN)$345.50+4.11%NuScale Power Corp. (NYSE:SMR)$7.91+2.99%Oklo Inc. (NYSE:OKLO)$37.01+2.89%Cameco Corp. (NYSE:CCJ)$89.81+2.68%VanEck Uranium and Nuclear ETF (NYSE:NLR)$106.25+2.43% What Wall Street Thinks Constellation carries an Overweight consensus rating from 20 analysts, according to Benzinga Analyst Ratings. Fifteen rate the stock a Buy and five a Hold. The average price target is $349, which implies about 20% upside from the premarket price. However, most recent moves have been cuts. Since late July, Barclays, Wells Fargo, UBS, TD Cowen and Argus Research have all lowered their targets. On Tuesday, Bernstein analyst Sunaina Ocalan maintained an Outperform rating with a $296 target. Read Also: Nasdaq 100 Records Have Rarely Been This Narrow, 55 Stocks Are Still Below 50-Day Average Image: Shutterstock