Dive Brief:

• NextEra Energy and GE Vernova will work together to speed the development of gas turbine projects, NextEra officials said during the company’s fourth quarter earnings call on Friday.
• GE Vernova and NextEra will spend the next four years identifying “key locations on the energy grid that would benefit from new generation,” NextEra President and CEO John Ketchum said. He later told investors during a Q&A session that any gas plants built under the agreement would be co-owned by both companies and would be subject to long-term contracts with offtakers, presumably large load customers such as data centers.
• Solar and onshore wind are still faster and cheaper to build than new natural gas and remain critical to hyperscaler companies with immediate energy needs, Ketchum said. But the way these companies think about energy acquisitions has changed dramatically in recent months, according to Rebecca Kujawa, president and CEO of NextEra Energy Resources.

Dive Insight:

If the U.S. is going to achieve “energy dominance” and avoid price hikes in the midst of rapid demand growth, it needs to build more natural gas plants, Ketchum said Friday.

The collaboration with GE, he said, will allow NextEra to provide large-load customers with integrated solutions comprised of renewables, energy storage and gas-fired generation based on gas generation and electrification technologies provided by GE Vernova. Demand for gas-fired generation has grown dramatically, prompting the cost of equipment and skilled labor to more than double in recent months, Ketchum said.

“As demand for power increases across all customer classes as we advance our domestic economic agenda, so does the potential price of power unless we bring new generation online quickly to meet that demand,” Ketchum said. “Customers of all types are looking for low-cost ways to meet their growing power needs while reducing their exposure to higher power prices over time. Given the current power demand environment, it is more important than ever to unleash all forms of electric generation starting with renewables.”

Long development timelines mean that it could be 2030 before NextEra and GE Vernova are able to bring new gas generation online, Ketchum said.

Meanwhile, wind and solar can be deployed in a matter of months and are cheaper to build than natural gas, which is driving record demand for new projects, he said. NextEra Energy Resources, the company's development arm, inked deals for a record 12 GW of new wind, solar and energy storage in 2024, up from 9 GW in its now second-best year, 2023.

The company is also tracking nuclear, including small modular reactors, as a potential energy solution. However, Ketchum said he still considers small nuclear reactors a “next-decade” solution.

The company is moving forward with plans to reopen the Duane Arnold nuclear power plant in Iowa potentially as early as 2028, Ketchum said. He said the company recently began the process of restoring the facility's operating license, but he declined to discuss the cost of reopening the plant with investors pending ongoing negotiations with customers.

While interest in clean energy remains high among data center developers and other large industrial customers, Kujawa said energy buyers' attitudes have shifted in light of their rapidly growing need for generation capacity.

“There's a lot of discussion about how do we get the resources that we need in the timeframes in which we need it, and matching that with some of the other goals that they may have either at corporate levels or certainly state levels. I think top of mind continues to be … speed to market with the resources that are available today at the lowest cost,” she said. “It's a real pragmatic view. I think it can't be underestimated how much this industry has changed in a very short amount of time — in really the last 15-18 months.”

NextEra also announced that subsidiary Florida Power & Light expects to file a base rate case in February. The utility plans to request an increase equivalent to about 2.5% of the average customer's bill, according to Brian Bolster, executive vice president and chief financial officer for NextEra Energy.