Jeff Quackenbush, NORTH BAY BUSINESS JOURNAL
But Earthjustice, together with Public Citizen, PennFuture and Clean Air Council, petitioned federal regulators to block the combination, claiming it would increase electricity costs by reducing competition and it would increase pollution via the natural gas plants.
The biggest operator of geothermal power plants at The Geysers field straddling Sonoma and Lake counties is now under new ownership.
Constellation Energy Corp. (Nasdaq: CEG) has finished its $26.6 billion acquisition of Calpine Corp., which has been involved with The Geysers 36 years ago and expanded its holdings to become its top producer a decade later.
The transaction, originally announced a year ago and completed early this year, finalizes one of the largest power-generation deals in U.S. history and creates what the company describes as the nation’s top producer of electricity.
It brings together Baltimore-based Constellation’s zero-emission nuclear fleet with Houston-based Calpine’s natural gas and geothermal assets, positioning the combined company to meet rapidly rising power demand driven by data centers, artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing and electrification. They collectively serve about 2.5 million customers nationwide and operate 55 gigawatts of capacity across nuclear, natural gas and geothermal resources.
Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/2026/01/26/constellation-calpine-geysers-acquisition/