Six Units, Four Sites, Licences to 2053Wide moat

Vistra (VST) — moat facet

An inventory of things that cannot be added to, which is why every hyperscaler contract signed so far has been a nuclear contract.

The disclosure is a small table and it is the most valuable page in the annual report. Comanche Peak Unit 1, ERCOT, 1,200 megawatts, refuelling every 18 months, licence to 2050. Unit 2, the same, to 2053. Beaver Valley Unit 1 in PJM, 939 megawatts, to 2036; Unit 2, 933 megawatts, to 2047. Perry, 1,268 megawatts, refuelling every 24 months, to 2046. Davis-Besse, 908 megawatts, to 20371.

The asset register, unit by unitComanche Peak 1, ERCOT1,200 MW - licence to 2050Comanche Peak 2, ERCOT1,200 MW - licence to 2053Perry, PJM1,268 MW - licence to 2046Beaver Valley 2, PJM933 MW - licence to 2047Beaver Valley 1, PJM939 MW - licence to 2036Davis-Besse, PJM908 MW - licence to 2037
Two units in ERCOT, four in PJM - and the same asset earns differently on either side of that boundary.

Read it as an inventory of things that cannot be added to. There is no meaningful sense in which a competitor responds to Vistra's nuclear position by building nuclear, because on any timeline that matters to an investor the response does not exist. The supply of operating American reactors is fixed, slowly declining as old units retire, and every one that has been contracted to a data centre has been taken off the available list.

The geography matters as much as the megawatts. Two of the units are in ERCOT, where there is no capacity market and a generator earns only on energy and ancillary services. Four are in PJM, where capacity is a separate revenue stream paid for being available. The same asset earns differently on either side of a market boundary, which is why the Comanche Peak contract and the PJM contracts are structured differently.

The refuelling cadence is the operational constraint nobody outside the industry thinks about. A unit that refuels every 18 months is offline for several weeks on a schedule set years in advance, and the output that would have been sold in that window has to be bought back or hedged. Vistra amortises nuclear fuel as a cost of production — $133 million in Texas and $354 million in East in 20252 — which is the closest thing this business has to a raw material.

Moat trajectory: Holding steady

Six units, 6,448 megawatts, licences running from 2036 to 2053. Nothing about the asset register changes in either direction; what changes is the price the output commands.

The number that tests this moat
Reported
Long-term asset retirement obligations
$4,072M at 30 June 2026, from $4,035M

Four of the six reactor licences expire within about twenty years, and renewal is routine but not automatic. The cost of retiring plants, including the nuclear units, is what a licence that is not renewed brings forward.

Source: Vistra Form 10-Q, Q2 2026 ↗
⚠ Threats to the moat
⚠ THREAT 01
Four of Six Licences Expire Inside Twenty-Two Years
Renewal is routine and it is not automatic, and the economics that make it obvious today were the opposite five years ago.
References
  1. ReportedDavis-Besse, 908 megawatts, to 2037
    Vistra Corp. Form 10-K, FY2025, Item 2 Properties and generation fleet — six nuclear generating units at four facilities totalling 6,448 MW: Comanche Peak Unit 1 (ERCOT, 1,200 MW, 18-month refuelling, licence to 2050), Comanche Peak Unit 2 (ERCOT, 1,200 MW, 2053), Beaver Valley Unit 1 (PJM, 939 MW, 2036), Beaver Valley Unit 2 (PJM, 933 MW, 2047), Perry (PJM, 1,268 MW, 24-month refuelling, 2046) and Davis-Besse (PJM, 908 MW, 24-month refuelling, 2037), with nuclear units "generally operated at full capacity"; coal and lignite fleet of seven facilities totalling 8,743 MW; twelve peaking generation facilities totalling 4,822 MW; battery energy storage of 350 MW in California, 270 MW in Texas and 4 MW in Illinois; solar of 538 MW in Texas and 112 MW in Illinois; the Moss Landing 100 MW and 300 MW battery facilities "will not return to service" — FY2025 · publ. February 2026 · source ↗
  2. ReportedVistra amortises nuclear fuel as a cost of production — $133 million in Texas and $354 million in East in 2025 — which is the closest thing this business has to a raw material
    Vistra Corp. Form 10-K, FY2025, Adjusted EBITDA reconciliation — 2025 Adjusted EBITDA by segment: Retail $1,622M, Texas $1,834M, East $2,282M, West $244M, Sunset $(74)M, Corporate and Other $(70)M, total $5,838M, including nuclear fuel amortisation of $133M in Texas and $354M in East; 2024 Adjusted EBITDA: Retail $1,463M, Texas $2,032M, East $2,017M, West $225M, Sunset $(104)M, Corporate and Other $(94)M, total $5,539M; the 2025 change included higher retail margins "driven by strong counts and one-time gains from supply cost management" of $169M, a $(1,963)M change in unrealized net gain (loss) from commodity hedging transactions, $228M of impairment of long-lived assets and $191M of insurance income — FY2025 · publ. February 2026 · source ↗
Sources
Generated September 23, 2026