Texas-based retail electricity and power generation firm Vistra has acquired US power generation firm Cogentrix Energy in a $4.7 billion deal to serve surging demand from the data center market.

The deal will see Vistra acquire ten natural gas generation facilities totaling approximately 5.5GW of capacity. Five of the facilities are located in the PJM Interconnection market, four in the ISO New England market, and one in the ERCOT market.

The assets include the 881MW Patriot and 881MW Hamilton-Liberty combined-cycle gas plants in Pennsylvania, the 286MW Lakewood CCGT plant and 375MW Ocean combustion turbine facility in New Jersey, the 740MW Rock Springs CT plant in Maryland, the 624MW Newington plant in New Hampshire, 558MW Bridgeport in Connecticut, 297MW Tiverton in Rhode Island, 271MW Rumford in Maine, and the 583MW Altura cogeneration facility in Texas.

The acquisition comprises $2.3bn in cash, $900 million of Vistra stock consideration, and the assumption of $1.5bn of outstanding indebtedness at Cogentrix.

“The Vistra team is excited to announce the acquisition of the Cogentrix portfolio, marking the second opportunistic expansion of our generation footprint over the past year to support our ability to serve growing customer demand in our key markets,” said Vistra president and CEO Jim Burke. “Successfully integrating and operating generation assets is a major undertaking, and our talented team continues to demonstrate that it is a core competency of our company.”

“Our diversified fleet, anchored on natural gas and nuclear generation, will play a critical role in the reliability, affordability, and flexibility of US power grids. The addition of this natural gas portfolio is a great way to start another year of growth for Vistra as we’ve completed, acquired, or developed projects in each of the competitive power regions where we operate,” added Burke.

The acquisition adds to Vistra’s diverse portfolio of generation assets, which includes natural gas, nuclear, solar, and energy storage. It has increasingly framed its growth strategy around the surging electricity demand from AI-driven data centers, and has said that it is in early discussions with major data center operators to expand output from its nuclear sites and explore partners for new gas generation and co-location opportunities at existing power plants in the ERCOT and PJM markets.