NEW YORK, Jan 9, 2026, 17:13 EST — After-hours
- Vistra shares rose about 10.5% after-hours after Meta announced 20-year nuclear power agreements tied to three Vistra plants
- Vistra says the contracts cover more than 2,600 MW from Perry, Davis-Besse and Beaver Valley in PJM, with deliveries starting in late 2026
- An SEC filing outlines spending for plant “uprates” through 2034 and projects a lift to Vistra’s cash generation
Vistra Corp (VST) shares rose 10.5% in after-hours trading on Friday after Meta Platforms said it struck 20-year agreements to buy power from three Vistra nuclear plants. Shares were at $166.37 after swinging between $150.83 and $178.40 earlier in the day. Meta also said it will work with Oklo and TerraPower on small modular reactors, or SMRs — smaller nuclear units meant to be built largely in factories. (Reuters)
The deal lands as tech companies hunt for steady electricity to run data centers, where “always on” matters more than cheap power for a few hours. Nuclear fits that bill, and the market has treated long-dated power contracts as scarce assets as grid demand tightens.
For Vistra, a long-term buyer can blunt the swings of wholesale power prices and make it easier to justify big checks for maintenance and upgrades. That is the basic trade in merchant power: take price risk, or sell it off when a deep-pocketed customer shows up.
Vistra said the contracts cover more than 2,600 megawatts of zero-carbon electricity from its Perry and Davis-Besse plants in Ohio and the Beaver Valley plant in Pennsylvania, in PJM Interconnection, the grid operator that runs power markets across parts of the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest. A power purchase agreement, or PPA, is a long-term contract to buy electricity at set terms; Vistra said Meta’s purchases begin in late 2026, with more output added through 2034 via “uprates” — equipment upgrades that boost a plant’s capacity. Vistra CEO Jim Burke said the commitment gives the company “the certainty needed to invest,” while Meta’s head of global energy, Urvi Parekh, called nuclear “clean, reliable power” for the company’s AI buildout. (Vistra Corp. Investor Relations)
A securities filing showed the PPAs cover 2,609 megawatts of energy and capacity — payments for being available to generate during peak demand — from Vistra’s PJM nuclear fleet. Vistra said it expects to start delivering a portion of the operating output in late 2026 and reach full delivery by the end of 2027; uprate-related capacity is slated to start in 2031 and ramp through year-end 2034, with capital spending beginning in 2026 and less than 20% of the total projected by end-2028. At full delivery, Vistra said the contracts should lift its adjusted free cash flow before growth — a company cash metric before new investment — by about 8% to 10% from operating output and another 5% to 7% once the uprates are fully online, based on its 2026 guidance. (SEC)
Vistra also said the electricity will continue to flow into the PJM grid rather than being routed directly to Meta, framing the contracts as a financial backstop for output that still serves the wider market. That point matters in PJM, where capacity and reliability debates can turn political fast.
But the payoff depends on regulators and plant operators delivering those uprates on time and on budget, and on Meta’s long-term load forecasts holding up. Delays in permits, cost overruns, or a sharp shift in regional power prices could narrow the cash gains investors are now penciling in.
Traders will look for more detail on pricing and on the schedule for permits and outage work tied to the uprates, along with any update to Vistra’s 2026 cash-flow outlook. The first deliveries under the Meta contracts are slated for late 2026, with full operating output by year-end 2027 and the added uprate capacity scheduled to roll in through 2034.
