NextEra Energy has secured a $1.9 billion loan from the US Department of Energy's Office of Energy Dominance Financing to support the restart of the Duane Arnold nuclear power plant in Linn County, Iowa. The facility is tied to a long-term Power Purchase Agreement with Google, making it the latest US nuclear restart explicitly linked to hyperscale data center demand. The loan matters because it signals federal financial backing for returning retired nuclear capacity to service at a moment when large technology companies are seeking reliable, carbon-free baseload power for data centers.
The Duane Arnold plant first entered service in February 1975 and is the only nuclear energy project in Iowa. It was shut down after the 2020 Midwest derecho damaged the facility's cooling towers, and repairs were deemed uneconomical at the time. Reports surfaced in 2024 that NextEra was considering a restart of the 615MW plant, following Microsoft's announcement that it would take 100 percent of a revived Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania. NextEra subsequently announced a 25-year PPA with Google in October, with the plant expected to begin delivering power by 2029. The DOE said the latest loan will help finance the restart and represents the third loan provided by the Office of Energy Dominance Financing to support a nuclear plant restart in the US.
The evidence comes from a single Data Center Dynamics report published on September 9, 2026. The report cites US deputy secretary of energy James P. Danly, who said: "President Trump has set an ambitious course to restore American nuclear leadership, and the restart of Duane Arnold Nuclear Plant in Iowa marks another step in advancing America's nuclear renaissance." Danly added that returning 615MW of reliable baseload generation will drive down electricity costs while supporting thousands of American jobs. The same source places the Duane Arnold loan alongside two earlier restart financings: the Crane Clean Energy Center, also known as Three Mile Island Unit 1, which received a $1 billion loan, and the Palisades nuclear power plant in Covert Township, Michigan, which secured a $1.52 billion loan.
The sector context is defined by a wave of nuclear capacity contracted to hyperscale data center operators. In addition to Google's 25-year PPA with NextEra for Duane Arnold and Microsoft's commitment to take 100 percent of the revived Three Mile Island output, Meta signed a 20-year PPA with Constellation Energy for the entire output of the 1.1GW Clinton Clean Energy Center in Clinton, Illinois. AWS has also signed a 1.92GW PPA with Talen Energy for energy from the 2.5GW Susquehanna nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania. The Duane Arnold loan therefore fits a broader pattern in which federal financing and long-term corporate offtake agreements are converging to make previously uneconomic nuclear restarts viable.
Several limitations apply to this analysis. The dossier is based on a single secondary source read in full, and no independent corroboration is available for the loan amount, the PPA terms, or the restart timeline. The report does not specify the loan's interest rate, repayment schedule, or conditions. It also does not detail the estimated total cost of the restart, the scope of cooling tower repairs, or the regulatory approvals still required. The 2029 delivery target remains an expectation rather than a confirmed operational date. Readers should treat the $1.9 billion figure and the 615MW capacity as reported by one outlet, and watch for confirmation from NextEra, the DOE, or Google before drawing firm conclusions about project economics or execution risk.