Adding nuclear and gas
Vistra owns about 43.7 GW, including 22.3 GW in eastern U.S. markets, 19.6 GW in Texas and 1.6 GW in California.
Those numbers are set to grow through possible uprates at nuclear power plants and by building new resources, officials with the Irving, Texas-based independent power producer, said Thursday during a quarterly earnings conference call with equity analysts.
Vistra expects to finish analyzing by the end of the year the potential to add capacity at its nuclear power plants — with initial expectations that the company could increase its 6.6-GW nuclear fleet by about 10% starting in the early 2030s, Jim Burke, Vistra president and CEO, said.
Also, Vistra plans to build 860 MW of gas-fired generation in West Texas by mid-2028 for about $900 million, company officials said.
The plans come as Vistra is in discussions with companies seeking to buy power, including for data centers, according to Burke.
“Data center development remains robust, with the number of planned facilities across the U.S. more than doubling from 12 months ago,” Burke said. “We continue to see an acceleration in strong customer interest … and we believe the momentum we have today should enable us to realize multiple contracting opportunities.”
Vistra is seeing “record levels of interest” from customers across its existing portfolio as well as for new generation, according to Stacey Doré, chief strategy and sustainability officer and executive vice president of public affairs.
Excess capacity for near-term growth
Despite talk of energy shortfalls in leading markets, Burke said there is enough capacity in off “super peak” hours to meet near-term demand growth for customers willing to be flexible.
“There is excess capacity on the system in most markets today, particularly the major markets we're in — ERCOT and PJM — to meet most of the load growth during these non-super-peak hours,” Burke said.
Data centers and other large load customers can use on-site backup generation to supply their power as well as demand response during those “super peak” hours, he added.
Load growth is already leading to higher utilization rates at Vistra’s combined-cycle gas-fired power plants, where capacity factors have increased in the low 50% to the high 50% range over the last several years, according to Burke.
Growing demand could drive utilization at combined-cycle gas plants to the mid-80% range over time, Burke said.
Kris Moldovan, Vistra executive vice president and CFO, said he sees opportunities for Vistra to grow by buying assets.
“The opportunity set for inorganic growth is … at a high level right now,” he said.
Last month, Vistra closed on a $1.9 billion deal to buy 2.6 GW of gas-fired generation from Lotus Infrastructure Partners.
Capacity factors — a measure of a power plant’s usage rate — at Vistra’s power plant fleet were generally lower in the third quarter compared to the same period in 2024, according to the company.
