by Federal regulators denied a request to increase electrical output from a Pennsylvania nuclear power plant to an Amazon data center, leading to a dip in shares of some energy companies on Monday.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission voted 2-1 on Friday against an agreement that would have increased the amount of electricity from Talen Energy’s Susquehanna nuclear power plant from 300 megawatts to 480 megawatts.
Republican commissioners Mark Christie and Lindsay See voted against the deal, while the Democratic commissioner voted for it, according to The Hill. Two other Democratic commissioners, David Rosner and Judy Chang, abstained.
In a statement, Christie said: “Co-location arrangements of the type presented here present a range of complicated, nuanced and multi-faceted issues, which together could have enormous implications for both network reliability and consumer costs.”
Talen said Sunday that it “believes FERC has made a mistake and we are evaluating our options, with an emphasis on commercial solutions” and warned that “FERC’s decision will have a chilling effect on economic development in states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and New Jersey. “
In a statement on its website, the company also said development of the Amazon Web Services data center “can continue at that 300 megawatts” while it seeks approval to increase production.
Talen sold the 960-megawatt data center in March for $650 million.
The data center is located next to the Susquehanna plant, the sixth largest in the U.S. and can generate 2,475 megawatts, enough to power about 2 million homes, Talen said.
On Monday, Talen stock closed at $170 per share, down 2.2%.
Shares of Constellation Energy and Vistra Corp., which are expected to announce deals similar to Talen’s with Amazon, also fell more than 12% and about 3%, respectively, according to CNBC.
Constellation’s price drop marked the company’s worst trading day since it was spun off from Exelon in February 2022, according to CNBC.
