The free energy of nonideal two-component thermal plasma is calculated using the Poisson-Boltzmann equation. The possibility of the existence of a metastable state is shown for a component of heavy multicharged particles with particle charge values bounded from below and plasma temperature values bounded from above. The component of oppositely-charged light singly-charged particles and plasma generally do not feature the metastable state. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.