Google Locks In Half of Finland's Loviisa Nuclear Plant Through 2050
Hardware / news
Google Locks In Half of Finland's Loviisa Nuclear Plant Through 2050
The 22-year purchase agreement is expected to lift Fortum's group return on net assets by 1.4 percentage points once the full 50 percent share is under contract.
Google signed a power purchase agreement with Finnish utility Fortum on Wednesday for up to 50 percent of the output of the Loviisa nuclear plant, running from 2028 through 2050, according to Fortum's own announcement.
The deal covers a reduced share starting in 2028 and reaches the full 50 percent between 2030 and 2049, Fortum said. World Nuclear News reported the same structure independently, citing the two companies' joint statement.
What Loviisa actually is, in units
Loviisa runs two reactors commissioned in 1977 and 1980, each rated at 507 megawatts electric, and supplies more than 10 percent of Finland's electricity today from roughly 8 terawatt-hours a year, according to World Nuclear News. Fortum employs about 580 people at the site plus 100 contractors from other companies.
A 38-megawatt uprate is already under way and due to finish in 2028; Fortum said the Google contract is expected to enable a further 10-megawatt increase on top of that.
The number Fortum is pointing investors to
Fortum said the agreement should raise its group return on net assets by approximately 1.4 percentage points over time, once the full 50 percent share is contracted, against a group RONA target of 14 percent that Fortum set in late 2025. The company's Loviisa investment program runs to roughly 1 billion euros through 2050, with about 80 percent of that, 700 million euros, still awaiting final investment decisions.
| Loviisa fact | Figure |
|---|---|
| Reactors commissioned | 1977 and 1980 |
| Capacity per reactor | 507 MWe |
| Share of Finland's power today | Over 10 percent |
| Google's contracted share, 2030-2049 | 50 percent |
Why a 22-year contract, not a spot-market purchase
A power purchase agreement fixes a buyer's price and a seller's revenue for decades, which is the opposite of what an AI datacenter operator's own compute demand looks like: uncertain past a few years, growing in a range nobody states with confidence. Google's own reasoning, as Fortum characterized it, is not about winning the cheapest megawatt-hour on any given day. It is about giving Fortum revenue certainty long enough to justify the life-extension spending Loviisa needs to keep running past its original license terms.
Fortum President and Chief Executive Officer Markus Rauramo said "a key enabler for this growth are long-term partnerships, such as the one we have sealed today between Fortum and Google." Google's Aris Karcanias, its director of energy for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said the company is "doing our part to preserve a critical energy source" by backing the plant's lifespan extension.
What would change this read
The agreement sits inside a larger, separate commitment: Google says it will invest 13 billion euros in Finnish data centers and infrastructure over 2027 and 2028, including a 94-megawatt battery storage project in Kajaani, per Fortum. Whether the Loviisa contract was priced as a standalone power deal or as one line in a broader infrastructure negotiation is not disclosed by either company, and that omission is the gap that would most change how favorable this contract looks next to what AI accelerators and the chips built around power efficiency are actually costing to run at the other end of that 13 billion euros.
Sources
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