Vistra gets a conditional U.S. loan offer of up to $4.2 billion to boost output at three nuclear plants

The U.S. Energy Department on Monday offered Vistra up to $4.2 billion in loans to squeeze more electricity out of three of its nuclear plants in Ohio and Pennsylvania, putting federal money behind added output that Meta Platforms has already agreed to buy.

The department's lending arm, the Office of Energy Dominance Financing, said it had made a conditional commitment to finance power increases, known as uprates, and modernization work at Vistra's Beaver Valley plant in Pennsylvania and its Davis-Besse and Perry plants in Ohio. The office was formerly called the Loan Programs Office.

The commitment is not yet a loan. The department said Vistra must satisfy "certain technical, legal, environmental, and financial conditions" before it signs definitive financing documents and funds the money. It did not disclose an interest rate or term.

According to the department, the work would add 433 megawatts of new nuclear capacity, preserve nearly 4 gigawatts of existing output and support the plants' operation for 20 years beyond their current licenses. The commitment also includes an option to finance future uprates at Vistra's Comanche Peak plant in Texas. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a statement that "by getting more power out of the nuclear plants we already have," the government could deliver more affordable and reliable round-the-clock energy.

Vistra shares were up 3.7% at $145.19 at 3:24 p.m. ET. Constellation Energy, another large nuclear operator, was up 5.1%, suggesting part of Vistra's gain reflected a broader rally in nuclear power stocks.

The buyer came first

The 433 megawatts are not speculative supply. In January, Vistra signed 20-year power purchase agreements with Meta covering 2,609 megawatts from the three plants: 2,176 megawatts of existing output from Perry and Davis-Besse and the full 433 megawatts the uprates are expected to add. Vistra said at the time it was the largest nuclear uprate program supported by a corporate customer in the United States. Meta's purchases begin in late 2026, and the added capacity is due to come online through 2034.

That pairing is what makes the federal money notable. A long-term contract with a creditworthy buyer removes most of the demand risk, and government lending is typically cheaper than what a power producer pays in the bond market. On its May and August earnings calls, Vistra's chief financial officer, Kris Moldovan, listed the Meta-backed uprates among the investments the company planned to fund from cash it expects to generate in 2026 and 2027, according to POWER magazine. A federal loan could change that mix.

What the work involves

Perry, a 1,268-megawatt reactor on Lake Erie about 40 miles northeast of Cleveland, leads the program. In a Sept. 15 letter to Ohio's state preservation office, the lending office described a new auxiliary cooling tower, two support buildings and possible replacement of the main turbine and generator rotor, and said construction was "anticipated to begin in October 2026," POWER reported.

Vistra told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in January that it planned to apply in the second half of 2029 to run Perry 16% above its current licensed thermal power, reaching that level in the second quarter of 2031. The smaller increases at Beaver Valley's two units and at Davis-Besse, about 7% each, would follow between 2032 and 2034.

The plants' existing licenses run to 2036 for Beaver Valley's first unit, 2037 for Davis-Besse, 2046 for Perry and 2047 for Beaver Valley's second unit. Vistra has said the Meta contracts gave it the confidence to seek a further 20-year renewal at each.

Part of a larger federal push

The commitment extends the lending office's move into the existing reactor fleet. It has financed the restarts of Holtec's Palisades plant in Michigan, Constellation's Crane Clean Energy Center in Pennsylvania and NextEra's Duane Arnold plant in Iowa, and it closed a $26.5 billion package for Southern Co. subsidiaries that includes uprates.

The administration has set a goal of quadrupling U.S. nuclear capacity by 2050. Uprates are among the fastest ways to add output because they use reactors that are already licensed and connected to the grid. Demand is also pressing in the 13-state PJM grid region that Vistra's Ohio and Pennsylvania plants serve, where the capacity auctions for 2026-27 and 2027-28 both cleared at a federally approved price cap of more than $329 per megawatt-day.