America’s Biggest Power Firm Pivots Hard to Its Next Era

The world’s biggest listed utility’s claim to owning the future is baked into its name. Investors have long taken NextEra Energy Inc. at its word, too. But the future is being rewritten rapidly by bigger forces, namely political whiplash and the artificial intelligence boom. NextEra’s latest investor day, accompanied by a slew of deals, represents an attempt to catch up and, in doing so, offered confirmation of how much tomorrow has changed.

For a while, before Big Tech lit a spark under utilities in general, NextEra was itself the closest this humdrum sector had to a tech darling. That rested on three things: An unassailable position as the biggest utility in a large, growing, utility-friendly state, Florida; a deserved reputation for efficiency; and the biggest renewables development business in the US. The latter, especially, was turbocharged by the election of former President Joe Biden and the subsequent passage of the green-friendly Inflation Reduction Act. NextEra’s earnings grew at about 10% per annum, on average, over the past decade, more than double the regulated utility sector’s performance. What’s not to like?