Three Mile Island’s Unit 1 reactor is now set to open a year ahead of schedule.

At a Wednesday rally, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, energy officials, and tech executives celebrated the planned reopening and shared plans to reopen Three Mile Island Unit — now called the Crane Clean Energy Center — as early as 2027.

The 837-watt reactor was decommissioned in 2019, after 45 years of operation. It is located at a separate facility from Unit 2, which closed in 1979 after a partial meltdown. Constellation Energy Corp., the Baltimore-based owner of the plant, signed a 20-year contract with Microsoft, under which the tech company will buy energy from the facility to power its data centers.

“Energy has created not good, but great jobs in our commonwealth. It has lifted people up out of poverty, it’s powered the middle class, and it’s led to the creation of the American labor movement,” Shapiro said. “Energy did that, and we’re going to continue that progress in our commonwealth.”

“Folks shouldn’t sleep on nuclear,” he added.

Shapiro, who called himself an “all-of-the-above energy governor,” said the project is part of his goal to grow Pennsylvania’s energy portfolio. Early this year, he introduced his “Lighting Plan,” which seeks to expand renewable energy production in the state, through tax credits and more streamlined permitting processes.

“Pennsylvania is on the rise. We are seeing real opportunity and it’s because we have worked hard in our commonwealth to make us competitive again,” Shapiro said.

Constellation president and CEO Joe Dominguez said that “before anybody knew anything” about the project, he met with Shapiro at a “secret office” in a Philadelphia law firm.

“If you know anything about Governor Shapiro, he doesn’t delay until tomorrow what can be done today. And I didn’t leave the meeting with ambiguity, I left with incredible support and that continues to this day,” Dominguez said.