Amazon, AEP and X-energy to Study 960-Megawatt Nuclear Plant at Retired Indiana Coal Site

Amazon, American Electric Power (AEP) and reactor developer X-energy said on October 19 that they will study building a 960-megawatt nuclear plant on the site of a retired coal-fired power station in Sullivan County, Indiana. The companies have signed a joint development agreement to explore the project but have not committed to building it.

The plan calls for 12 of X-energy's Xe-100 small modular reactors, each rated at about 80 megawatts, arranged in three groups of four for a combined 960 megawatts. The site under evaluation is land owned by AEP's Indiana Michigan Power subsidiary at or near the former Breed Generating Station, a coal plant that has already been retired.

Under the arrangement described by Amazon, the company would fund the project's development and become the first customer for its electricity under a long-term contract, while AEP would operate the plant. The companies said the power would serve both the regional electric grid and Amazon's data centers in the area, rather than being dedicated solely to Amazon.

The announcement leaves most commercial details undecided. Amazon and AEP have not disclosed the plant's capital cost, the price or length of the electricity contract, a construction start date, a target date for commercial operation, or the regulatory licensing path the project would need to follow. A final investment decision has not been made, and the project would only proceed to construction if that decision is reached.

Indiana is the second site named under a 2024 goal set by Amazon and X-energy to develop more than 5 gigawatts of new nuclear generating capacity in the United States by 2039. The first site under that effort is in Washington state. The companies said the project could support construction jobs and permanent operating positions once built, though they did not give a specific figure in the announcement.

The deal is part of a broader push by large cloud and AI companies to secure new sources of electricity as data center power demand grows. Amazon, Microsoft and Google have each pursued nuclear deals in the past two years, including investments in small modular reactor developers, as grid operators warn that new generation is struggling to keep pace with data center construction.