And if we’re going to talk about PJM, for example, there’s a load integration process that people have to get through in order to cite a data center on the grid. And this is a network integration service study that could take months at best, years at worst. So a number of these customers are looking at colocation opportunities to hasten the speed in which they can become operational. So if you’re looking behind the fence line of the plan or a co located opportunity, there’s a necessary study process. It’s another PJM process. And PJM was clear in its amendments, its documents most recently, that you could go either on the grid or behind the fence line. But there’s a different process. We have become quite good at using the tools that PJM uses in their necessary study work so that we could look across our fleet at places where we think we could add the load behind the fence line.
We went through a necessary study process at LaSalle, and as it so happens, we were doing that in the case of the hydrogen hub that was intended to be built out there. So we did a study for 900. We were able to match up very closely our ability to model PJM’s work and be able to simulate that here at constellation. So I would say that we know very well where we could co locate data centers and get through the PJM process, but that’s a necessary study process that could take anywhere from six months to a year to resume. And once you have that, it goes through, I don’t want to say perfunctory, but a fairly routine FERC approval process. And that would be the starting point. So if you have a necessary study done, what you’re really talking about is having the transformers and the infrastructure, but you could kind of break ground pretty quickly.
You don’t have a necessary study done. You’re going to have to wait a year to figure out where you could co locate. And then on the data company side, they also have the time that they need to build out the shell, the infrastructure supporting all of the equipment inside, cooling and likewise, and then actually build out the servers inside of it. So you have to anticipate ramp rate. So, you know, from my perspective, this isn’t something you’re going to see people plop into service in ’24, ’25 talents ahead of others because they started earlier. But this is more stuff that begins in ’26, ’27, ’28. And it ramps over time as the data centers are built. No one is plopping down a 1 GW day. And I’ve read reports of this. No one’s plopping down a 1 GW data center in six months.
To believe that completely and thoroughly misunderstands the amount of work needed to get this stuff done. So the contracts have a scaling component to them. You saw kind of an example of that in the Talon, the Susquehanna deal that was done that’s similar to ramp rates that you would see and other things. And that’s why I’m pretty confident we’ll be able to manage the energy demands on the system because you likewise will ramp into this load. So that’s what I’m seeing here. A couple of years before you’re able to really start delivering the megawatts. And then it ramps steadily after that. What we’re trying to do is get the contracts done that lay out the gross amount of megawatts that are going to be needed, timeframe over which they’re going to be needed, and allows us to begin necessary infrastructure work with an understanding that we’re doing the PJM study and other things on a parallel path even as we speak here this morning.
Steve Fleishman: Okay. Is it, do you think you’ll be able to have something to announce by the end of the year?
Joseph Dominguez: Look, I’ll stick with this. We are working fast. Our clients want to work fast. I, for competitive reasons, I don’t want to lay out when we think announcements are going to come. And I don’t think it would be fair to our clients to do that either at this point. There’s work that is underway. Got a lot of folks thinking about it and working on it again, you know, as this call is progressing. So I’m confident that we are going to be able to get to the finish line on these things, but we still have some work to do, and I don’t want to lay out a time frame for announcement.
Steve Fleishman: Okay, just one other quick question. The law that passed on the Russia limits on nuclear enriched nuclear and then investing in US enrichment, can you just talk about your nuclear fuel update on your nuclear fuel positioning and the impact of that law?
James McHugh: Yeah, Steve, I think on this one there’s not a whole lot more to report. In effect, when we took the actions, we took a couple years or, you know, over a year ago now, we were anticipating the passage of a ban, as we, as we reported at the time, took a little bit longer to get through Congress, but it’s now there it’s now realized. So I think it just simply supports the strategy that we put in place a year ago. We think we are in very solid position, kind of industry leading, solid position with regard to fuel. And we also are happy to see now investments in this domestic supply chain, which means that, you know, after this period of time where we’ve grown inventory, we’re confident that we’re going to have available and reasonably priced fuel to run this fleet, you know, for the next decade.
Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Digesh Chopra with Evercore. ISI, your line is open.
Durgesh Chopra: Morning. Hey, good morning. Thanks for giving me time. Maybe just. You obviously authorize additional billion dollars in share buybacks. I know there’s no direct answer to this, but can you just help us kind of think through what is your calculus when you’re thinking about incremental investment opportunities versus deploying capital on share buybacks and considering M&A in the future?
Joseph Dominguez: Yeah, I don’t mind talking about it at all. It really is a summation of everything we’ve talked about in the call. We think we have a very good strategy here. We think as we compare that to M&A opportunities, the unrealized value in constellation seems to be the best place for us to put our investment dollar right now. It has. You know, we’ve been buying shares of this company since we were, what, in the $80? And we saw, we saw a little bit of a drop in prices. We had some kind of negative, I would say, analyst reports at that point in time. We didn’t believe it. We told you. We didn’t believe it. We told you we’d buy the company all day long. We still feel that way today because what we’re looking at is the potential growth in our business, the opportunities that we know we’re working on, the fundamentals and power markets and sustainability goals that I talked about earlier.
