Growing U.S. electricity demand, fueled by the rise of artificial intelligence and data centers, has sparked moves to restart shuttered nuclear power plants in order to help feed that appetite for power.

The Palisades plant in Michigan, the Duane Arnold plant in Iowa and the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania, all of which shut down in recent years, are now in various stages of recommissioning. The planned reopening of Three Mile Island, for one, is directly tied to the construction of data centers.[...]

The interconnection status of a recommissioning nuclear plant may determine whether it can secure large-scale customers such as data centers, according to Duane Morris LLP partner Robert Montejo.

"I haven't had a big problem with the generation; the bigger problems are getting access to that substation and access to the grid," said Montejo, who works on data center development. "We want to make sure they have regulatory approval from the NRC and FERC, and their interconnection [established] so we can match up our construction timelines to theirs."[...]

To read the full text of this article, please visit the Law360 site (subscription required).