Google has locked in a 22-year power purchase agreement with Finnish utility Fortum, securing the future of the Loviisa nuclear power plant through 2050 by contracting for up to 50% of its output between 2030 and 2049. The deal is paired with a separate pledge from Google to invest at least €13 billion in Finland over 2027 and 2028, covering new data centers and supporting infrastructure in four towns north of Helsinki.
Without the agreement, Fortum has said, the two-reactor plant could not have kept running past 2030 at all. Instead, Loviisa’s operating life now extends alongside the lifespan of Google’s own expanding footprint in the country, which dates back roughly 15 years to the company’s first Finnish data center in Hamina.
A 22-year contract built to keep Loviisa past 2030
The power purchase agreement, announced September 9, 2026, will start in 2028 with a smaller share of Loviisa’s output before rising to 50% of the plant’s capacity for the 2030–2049 period. Fortum’s fully owned Loviisa plant runs two pressurized water reactors, commissioned in 1977 and 1980, that together supply about 10% of Finland’s electricity from a site roughly 55 kilometers from Google’s original Hamina data center.
“Our agreement with Google meets Fortum’s long-term return requirements and clearly improves the risk-adjusted return profile of existing nuclear assets, supporting earnings visibility over the contract duration,” said Fortum’s President and CEO Markus Rauramo. He called long-term partnerships like this one essential to turning Finland’s low-carbon grid into what he described as a foundation for the next wave of sustainable industrial growth.
Why Google is underwriting a 1970s-era reactor
Google has operated in Finland for about 15 years, and the Hamina data center that anchors its presence there sits close enough to Loviisa that keeping the plant online directly affects the reliability of Google’s own power supply. “We are proud to have called Finland home for the past 15 years, and as we grow our footprint in the country, it’s critical that we work with local energy partners, such as Fortum, to understand what the grid needs and invest in energy solutions that deliver long-term resilience and affordability for all electricity customers,” said Aris Karcanias, Google’s Director of Energy for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
The €13 billion investment tied to the announcement covers new and expanded data center campuses in Hamina, Kajaani, Muhos, and Vaala, according to a company blog post from Google’s Enrique Frances and Zivile Vens. The company says it worked with Finnish grid operator Fingrid and Business Finland to site the new facilities in the north and center of the country, where existing transmission infrastructure and carbon-free generation are already concentrated.
The batteries and wind farms bundled into the deal
The Loviisa contract was only one piece of what Google announced. The company is also backing a 94-megawatt battery storage system next to its Kajaani site, expected to begin operating in late 2027 and intended to smooth out price swings when wind generation drops. Combined with two new onshore wind projects developed by Valorem and Suomen Hyötytuuli, Google’s total contracted new-to-grid wind capacity in Finland climbs to 629 megawatts. Fortum, for its part, brings a broader Nordic pipeline to the partnership: roughly 8 gigawatts of renewable projects already in permitting, with a strategic target of having 1.2 gigawatts ready to build and 2.5 gigawatts of new flexibility capacity, such as batteries and pumped hydro, in place by the end of 2028.
Google also cited outside modeling to justify the siting choices behind the investment. A study it commissioned from consultancy Baringa found that placing large new power demand in the Oulu-Kajaani region, rather than in southern Finland, could save Finnish energy consumers an estimated €520 million over 20 years. The company has run smaller versions of this balancing act before, including a demand-response pilot at the Hamina data center during Europe’s 2022–2023 energy crisis that temporarily reduced power draw at times of grid stress.
The financial stakes for Fortum
For Fortum, the arithmetic is straightforward: more contracted revenue makes it easier to justify continued spending on an aging plant. The company says the agreement is expected to lift its Group comparable return on net assets by approximately 1.4 percentage points once the full 50% of Loviisa’s capacity is under contract, supporting a longer-term return target of 14% that Fortum set in late 2025.
That target sits against an active spending program. Fortum has an ongoing investment plan worth roughly €1 billion aimed at extending Loviisa’s life to 2050, and by its own account, about 80% of the required projects and €700 million of that capital had not yet received final investment decisions as of the announcement. The Google contract is also expected to unlock a new 10-megawatt capacity increase at the plant, on top of a previously planned 38-megawatt uprate due to come online in 2028. The two companies have also agreed to explore new reactor options at the Loviisa site, building on a nuclear feasibility study Fortum concluded in March 2025, though neither company has set a timeline for a decision.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
More from Morning Overview
