PSEG, Constellation Plan 200 MW Salem Uprate; Salem 1 Outage Extended

PSEG Power and Constellation Energy plan a 200 MW power uprate at the jointly owned Salem nuclear plant in New Jersey, according to Public Service Enterprise Group's (PSEG) third-quarter earnings presentation, released Monday, Nov. 2, 2026.

Salem's installed capacity is 2,280 MW today, so the uprate would add about 9% to the site. PSEG Power would take 112 MW of the increase and Constellation the remaining 88 MW, Utility Dive reported. That share would support Constellation's recently announced nuclear power purchase agreement (PPA) with Google, the trade outlet said. PSEG's 10-Q quarterly filing, dated the same day, says the company is planning uprates at both Salem 1 and Salem 2 to raise generation capacity and reliability and to support long-term operation, including a possible subsequent licence renewal.

The same filing carries a warning. During a scheduled refueling outage at Salem 1 in October 2026, a visual inspection found degradation of the thermal shield inside the reactor vessel. PSEG said it has started further testing that is expected to extend the outage, and that the effect on Salem 1 depends on the timing and results of the inspection and the repairs needed. The filing gives no restart date and no estimate of lost output.

Why it matters for data-center supply

An uprate is usually the quickest firm capacity an owner can add at an existing nuclear site, because it needs no new reactor or new site. It still requires a licence change from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and the sources do not say whether PSEG or Constellation has filed one. The 200 MW is small against hyperscale demand, but it is firm supply tied to an existing PPA rather than a new-build promise.

The outage is the counterweight. Salem 1 is one of the two units behind the 2,280 MW figure, and a repair of unknown length keeps it off the grid. The sources do not say whether the thermal shield finding affects the uprate plan or its schedule, and neither company has linked the two.

Fleet and contract talks

PSEG Power's nuclear fleet of roughly 3,760 MW ran at a 95.5% capacity factor in the third quarter, up from 92.4% a year earlier, according to the presentation as reported by Utility Dive. The 10-Q puts the nine-month capacity factor at 94.3%, with the units generating about 23.9 terawatt-hours in that period.

Chair, president and chief executive Ralph LaRossa said on the earnings call that PSEG Power is continuing to develop terms with large-load customers for arrangements covering existing nuclear output, future nuclear upgrades and other generation, similar to recently announced PPAs in PJM and specifically New Jersey. No counterparty, volume or price was named, so this is a stated intention, not a signed deal.

Other nuclear uprates are already in play. Voltgrid has reported that the Department of Energy offered Constellation up to $5 billion for nearly 1.1 GW of nuclear uprates, and that Amazon's Calvert Cliffs deal covers 690 MW including a 190 MW uprate. Salem's 200 MW is similar in scale to the Calvert Cliffs uprate, though the terms differ.

What is not confirmed yet

PSEG has not said how long Salem 1 will stay offline, what repairs are needed or what they cost. No NRC approval for the Salem uprate, no in-service date and no capital cost appear in the sources, and the terms of the Google PPA were not detailed there either. The next PSEG filings and any NRC licence-amendment request are the places to look for those answers.