Earnings call transcript: NextEra Energy Q3 2025 beats EPS forecast, revenue falls short

NextEra Energy Inc. (NEE), with a substantial market capitalization of $173 billion, reported its Q3 2025 earnings, showcasing a strong performance in earnings per share (EPS) but falling short on revenue expectations. The company posted an EPS of $1.13, surpassing the forecasted $0.98 by 15.31%, while actual revenue was $7.97 billion, below the expected $8.15 billion, marking a 2.21% miss. In pre-market trading, the stock rose by 2.06%, reflecting investor optimism despite the revenue shortfall. According to InvestingPro analysis, NEE currently appears overvalued, trading at a relatively high P/E ratio of 29.5x.

Key Takeaways

• EPS exceeded expectations, showing a 15.31% surprise.
• Revenue missed forecasts by 2.21%, impacting overall financial performance.
• Pre-market stock price increased by 2.06%, indicating positive investor sentiment.
• Strong growth in energy resources with a 13% increase in adjusted earnings.
• Significant capital investments and strategic partnerships announced.

Company Performance

NextEra Energy demonstrated robust performance in Q3 2025, with a 9.7% year-over-year increase in adjusted EPS. The company’s Energy Resources division reported a 13% growth in adjusted earnings, reflecting its strong position in the renewable energy sector. Florida Power & Light (FPL), a subsidiary, also contributed positively with an $0.08 increase in EPS. These results underscore NextEra’s strategic focus on expanding its energy infrastructure and renewable energy capabilities.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $7.97 billion, down from the forecasted $8.15 billion.
• Earnings per share: $1.13, up from the forecasted $0.98.
• Capital expenditures for FPL: $2.5 billion for the quarter.
• Full-year capital investments projected between $9.3 billion and $9.8 billion.

Earnings vs. Forecast

NextEra Energy’s Q3 2025 EPS of $1.13 outperformed the forecast by 15.31%, a significant achievement compared to previous quarters. However, the revenue of $7.97 billion fell short of the $8.15 billion expectation, marking a 2.21% miss. This mixed performance highlights the company’s strong cost management and operational efficiency, despite challenges in meeting revenue targets.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings release, NextEra Energy’s stock saw a 2.06% increase in pre-market trading, reaching $87.80. This movement indicates investor confidence in the company’s ability to deliver strong earnings growth, even as revenue targets were not met. The stock’s rise positions it near its 52-week high of $86.74, reflecting positive market sentiment. InvestingPro data shows strong momentum with a 29.7% return over the past six months, though technical indicators suggest the stock may be entering overbought territory. Discover more insights about NEE’s valuation and market position in the comprehensive Pro Research Report, available exclusively to InvestingPro subscribers.

Outlook & Guidance

NextEra Energy remains optimistic about its future, expecting to deliver financial results at the top end of its adjusted EPS ranges for 2025-2027. The company plans to grow dividends by approximately 10% annually through 2026 and is committed to expanding its renewable energy and storage solutions. Strategic initiatives, including a 25-year power purchase agreement with Google, are expected to bolster future earnings.

Executive Commentary

CEO John Ketchum highlighted the company’s competitive edge, stating, "America is in a golden age of power demand. The country needs more electricity than ever." He also emphasized the company’s comprehensive energy infrastructure capabilities, declaring, "We develop, build, and operate all forms of energy infrastructure."

Risks and Challenges

• Revenue shortfall highlights potential market saturation or demand fluctuations.
• High capital expenditures may impact short-term cash flow.
• Regulatory challenges related to proposed rate agreements could affect profitability.
• Dependence on gas-fired and nuclear power generation exposes the company to fuel price volatility.

- Growing competition in the renewable energy sector could pressure margins.

• Current ratio of 0.54 indicates potential liquidity challenges.

• High debt-to-equity ratio of 1.83 may impact financial flexibility.

Access the complete financial health analysis and risk assessment through InvestingPro, featuring detailed metrics and expert insights across 1,400+ US stocks.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the Duane Arnold nuclear plant restart and the company’s backlog management. Executives addressed these concerns, highlighting the strategic importance of nuclear generation and the company’s strong positioning in large load energy solutions.

Full transcript - Nextera Energy Inc (NEE) Q3 2025:

Steve, Conference Operator: Good day and welcome to NextEra Energy Inc. Q3 2025 earnings conference call. All participants will be in the listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the STAR key followed by zero. After today’s presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press STAR, then one on your touch-tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press STAR, then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would like to turn the conference over to Mark Edelman, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Mark Edelman, Director of Investor Relations, NextEra Energy: Thank you, Steve. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our third quarter 2025 financial results conference call for NextEra Energy. With me this morning are John Ketchum, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of NextEra Energy; Mike Dunn, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of NextEra Energy; Armando Pimentel, President and Chief Executive Officer of Florida Power & Light Company; Brian Bolster, President and Chief Executive Officer of NextEra Energy Resources; and Mark Hickson, Executive Vice President of NextEra Energy. John will start with opening remarks, and then Mike will provide an overview of our third quarter results. Our executive team will then be available to answer your questions. We will be making forward-looking statements during this call based on current expectations and assumptions, which are subject to risks and uncertainties.

Actual results could differ materially from our forward-looking statements if any of our key assumptions are incorrect or because of other factors discussed in today’s earnings news release, in the comments made during this conference call, in the risk factor section of the company presentation, or in our latest reports and filings for the Securities and Exchange Commission, each of which can be found on our website, www.nexteraenergy.com. We do not undertake any duty to update any forward-looking statements. Today’s presentation also includes references to non-GAAP financial measures. You should refer to the information contained in the slides accompanying today’s presentation for definitional information and reconciliations of historical non-GAAP measures to the closest GAAP financial measure. With that, I’ll turn the call over to John.

John Ketchum, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, NextEra Energy: Thanks, Mark, and good morning, everyone. NextEra Energy delivered strong third quarter results with adjusted earnings per share increasing 9.7% year over year. In addition, through the first nine months of the year, our adjusted earnings per share has increased 9.3% year over year. The continued strong financial and operational performance at both Florida Power & Light Company and NextEra Energy Resources positions our company well to meet its overall objectives for the year. America is in a golden age of power demand. The country needs more electricity than ever. New electrons can’t get on the grid fast enough. NextEra Energy is uniquely positioned to help lead this pivotal moment for our sector. We develop, build, and operate all forms of energy infrastructure. At our core, we’re a development company. We have a world-class platform that enables us to quickly build low-cost generation and electric and gas transmission.

We’re not just recontracting around existing assets. We’re also building new energy infrastructure needed to power America. Our two world-class companies, Florida Power & Light Company and NextEra Energy Resources, are the perfect complement to one another. Day in and day out, we are powering today and building tomorrow. Importantly, we are in a terrific position to continue delivering near-term and long-term value to our customers and shareholders. As we discussed with you earlier this month, our long-term earnings growth drivers are extensive, both inside and outside Florida. Simply put, we have many ways to grow across our platform, both this decade and the next. We are excited to discuss this and much more in greater detail with you at our investor conference on December 8th.

The Florida economy continues to see significant economic growth, and Florida Power & Light Company continues to make smart, long-term investments to serve that growth while keeping bills low and reliability high. We put our customers first, and the results speak for themselves. Florida Power & Light customers experience top-decile reliability that’s nearly 60% better than the national average. Typical Florida Power & Light residential bills are 20% lower than they were 20 years ago when adjusted for inflation. That’s not by accident. Florida Power & Light’s non-fuel O&M costs are 70% lower than the national average and over 50% lower than second-best in our industry. Approximately 90% of Florida Power & Light’s power generation comes from the nation’s largest gas-fired fleet and four nuclear units.

This baseload power is the backbone of our system, giving us the flexibility to meet our customers’ needs with the lowest cost forms of energy right now: solar and storage. Remember, a robust gas and nuclear fleet means we don’t necessarily need nighttime electrons. We need more low-cost electrons to meet our daytime peak, which is why solar and storage are the perfect complement and choice for FPL’s system and customers today. FPL is also preparing for the future, which will require even more baseload gas generation and perhaps further down the road, nuclear generation. It’s all happening in a state that needs more electricity, not less, just like America. Florida is one of the nation’s fastest-growing states and the world’s 16th largest economy.

It’s why FPL plans to invest approximately $40 billion over the next four years in new, all the above, energy infrastructure, including 5.3 GW in solar, 3.4 GW in battery storage, and a gas peaker plant that is pending regulatory approvals. We look forward to continuing the successful multi-decade approach of adding low-cost generation to meet Florida’s growing need for power while also increasing reliability and keeping customer bills low. This approach is at the heart of our new four-year rate proposal. As a reminder, on February 28, we initiated FPL’s 2025 base rate proceeding for new rates effective in January 2026. We reached a proposed settlement agreement in August with most of the interveners in the proceeding, reflecting a broad set of constituents across our customer base. The four-year proposed agreement would provide an allowed midpoint regulatory return on equity of 10.95% with a range of 9.95% to 11.95%.

There would be no change to FPL’s equity ratio of 59.6%. The proposed agreement also includes a rate stabilization mechanism similar to what we filed in February. The proposed settlement also includes two new large load tariffs that are designed to ensure large load customers pay for the incremental generation needed to serve them. We believe the proposed settlement is fair, balanced, and constructive and supports our continued ability to provide highly reliable, low-cost service for our customers through the end of the decade. If the proposed agreement is approved, typical residential customer bills would increase only about 2% annually between 2025 and 2029. This means bills would remain well below the current national average, providing our customers with the economic certainty that comes from a four-year rate agreement.

We completed evidentiary hearings earlier this month and expect the Florida Public Service Commission to provide a final decision on the proposed settlement agreement on November 20th. This summer, we received a constructive outcome on federal tax credits, providing policy certainty for our renewables build at Energy Resources. We expect to receive tax credits for our renewable development plans through 2030, while our suppliers are positioned to be FEOC compliant. We’ve also been able to reduce development risk for a large part of our planned build. That’s because Energy Resources has approximately 1.5 times coverage of the project inventory required to support its development expectations through 2030. This provides us the runway we need to continue delivering low-cost power solutions to our customers who need power today and tomorrow. Renewables are just the start. We also plan on delivering power through battery storage, gas-fired generation, and nuclear.

Over the second and third quarters alone, we have originated 2.8 GW of new battery storage opportunities as we continue to grow the world’s leading storage business, backed by a domestic supply base with batteries made in America. We’re also leading the much-needed development of linear transmission infrastructure, both electric and gas, and our customer supply business has proven integral to serving data center customers. We’re tying it all together through our AI-driven, world-class development platform and decades of experience. We are doing it at a time when the combination of development capabilities and a strong balance sheet are more important than ever. It is why we are ideally positioned to work with hyperscalers who are increasingly looking to power their business by bringing their own generation.

We are unique in that we combine a national footprint, a strong balance sheet, supply chain capabilities, and experience in building all forms of generation and transmission, together with unmatched customer relationships and an industry-leading team on a development platform second to none. That is what we believe it takes to serve this new customer class, which is investing tens of billions of dollars per project. Hyperscalers, data center operators, and load-serving entities continue to tell us they need solutions for large load today and tomorrow to address growing energy demand across America. As a leader in serving this demand, I am pleased to announce we have entered into a 25-year power purchase agreement with Google that, pending regulatory approvals, enables us to recommission our Duane Arnold Energy Center nuclear plant in Palo, Iowa, just outside of Cedar Rapids.

The 615-megawatt plant is just the beginning and will help power Google’s growing cloud and AI infrastructure in Iowa once it returns to operation, which we expect to occur no later than the first quarter of 2029 and perhaps as early as the fourth quarter of 2028. Duane Arnold shut down in August 2020 after safely and reliably serving Eastern Iowa for decades. Because we carefully and methodically went through the decommissioning process, we have confidence in the investment required to restart it. During our evaluation of recommissioning Duane Arnold, we collaborated closely with the plant’s minority owners, Central Iowa Power Cooperative, known as CIPCO, which provides power to the local community, and Corn Belt Power Cooperative.

As part of that collaboration, CIPCO will purchase 50 megawatts of the plant’s output on terms and conditions consistent with the Google PPA, and we have signed definitive agreements to acquire CIPCO and Corn Belt’s combined 30% interest in the plant, which will bring our ownership to 100%. Restarting Duane Arnold marks an important milestone for NextEra Energy. Our partnership with Google not only brings nuclear energy back to Iowa, it also accelerates the development of next-generation nuclear technology. With the support of the Trump administration, Google and NextEra Energy are creating more than 1,600 jobs and adding more than $9 billion to the local economy, creating a win for the U.S., a win for both companies, and a win for Iowa.

As a demonstration of the pride of working at Duane Arnold and for NextEra Energy, a significant number of Duane Arnold’s previous workforce are looking to return to work at the facility. Our team working to recommission Duane Arnold includes many of the same employees who decommissioned the plant five years ago. Beyond the nuclear plant, we have ample land available to provide additional power and capacity solutions, including battery storage to support data center build and potential future expansion. As part of the agreement, NextEra Energy and Google have also signed an agreement to explore the development of an advanced nuclear generation to be deployed in the U.S., which will help power America’s growing electricity needs. Of course, to move that forward, we’ll be certain to appropriately mitigate and limit our financial exposure as new nuclear technologies continue to advance.

We expect Duane Arnold will be eligible for a nuclear production tax credit with a 10% energy community bonus. Once restarted, we expect Duane Arnold to contribute up to $0.16 of annual adjusted EPS on average over its first 10 years of operation. Duane Arnold is one example of data center hubs we are developing across the country. When you put it all together, our opportunity set is not contained to a single utility service territory. NextEra Energy has a national footprint. We serve America and have relationships with all types of customers, including cooperatives, municipalities, and utilities of all sizes looking to attract data center load to their service territories. We are committing to building new infrastructure and building energy for our customers where and when they want it.

I believe there is no team and no company in this country with a comprehensive set of skills and balance sheet better positioned to get the job done. Bottom line, we have many ways to grow, and we remain well-positioned not just for the rest of the decade, but into the next decade as well. We look forward to sharing many more details with you in December. With that, I’ll turn the call over to Mike to walk you through detailed results from the quarter.

Mike Dunn, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, NextEra Energy: Thank you, John, and good morning, everyone. For the third quarter of 2025, FPL’s earnings per share increased by $0.08 year over year. The principal driver of this performance was FPL’s regulatory capital employee growth of approximately 8% year over year. FPL’s capital expenditures were approximately $2.5 billion for the quarter, and we expect FPL’s full-year capital investments to be between $9.3 and $9.8 billion. For the 12 months ending September 2025, FPL’s reported return on equity for regulatory purposes will be approximately 11.7%. During the third quarter, we reversed approximately $218 million of reserve amortization, leaving FPL with a balance of roughly $473 million. Looking forward, we expect to use a portion of the remaining reserve amortization balance for the remainder of the year. FPL’s third quarter retail sales decreased 1.8% from the prior year comparable period due to milder weather.

On a weather-normalized basis, from the prior year comparable period, retail sales increased by 1.9% due to an increase in customer growth and underlying usage. Now let’s turn to Energy Resources, which reported adjusted earnings growth of approximately 13% year over year. At Energy Resources, adjusted earnings per share increased by $0.06 year over year. Contributions from new investments increased $0.09 per share, primarily driven by continued growth in our renewables portfolio. Contributions from our existing clean energy portfolio remained unchanged year over year despite weaker wind resource due to better performance at our nuclear fleet. Wind resource for the third quarter of 2025 was approximately 90% of the long-term average versus 93% in the third quarter of 2024. The comparative contribution from our customer supply business increased by $0.06 per share, primarily driven by timing origination activity during the quarter.

All other impacts decreased by $0.09 per share, driven by asset recycling during the third quarter last year, as well as higher financing costs, mostly related to borrowing costs to support our new investments. Energy Resources had a strong quarter of new renewables and storage origination, adding 3 gigawatts to the backlog. With these additions, our backlog now totals nearly 30 gigawatts after taking into account more than 1.7 gigawatts of new projects placed into service since our last earnings call. We expect the backlog additions will go into service over the next few years and into 2029. This marks the sixth consecutive quarter that Energy Resources has added three or more gigawatts to its backlog. We continue to see strong customer demand for ready-now capacity solutions, as we had our strongest quarter ever in battery storage origination, with 1.9 gigawatts of additions to our backlog.

Turning now to our third quarter 2025 consolidated results. Adjusted earnings per share from corporate and other decreased by $0.04 per share year over year. Our long-term financial expectations remain unchanged. We will be disappointed if we’re not able to deliver financial results at or near the top end of our adjusted earnings per share expectation ranges in 2025, 2026, and 2027. From 2023 to 2027, we continue to expect that our average annual growth in operating cash flow will be at or above our adjusted earnings per share compound annual growth rate range. We also continue to expect to grow our dividends per share at roughly 10% per year through at least 2026, off a 2024 base. As always, our expectations assume our caveats. This concludes our prepared remarks, and with that, we will open the line for questions.

Steve, Conference Operator: Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press STAR, then one on your touch-tone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press STAR, then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question comes from Steve Fleischmann with Wolfe Research.

Hi. Good morning. Congrats on the Duane Arnold news. Maybe just on that topic, John, can you give us any sense on what the cost of restart might be and also the buy-in price of the 30% that you’re buying in of Duane Arnold? Thanks.

John Ketchum, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, NextEra Energy: Yeah. Hey, thanks, Steve. Appreciate the question. First of all, just the sensitivities, we’re not going to go into the CapEx number on this call. Needless to say, we feel very good about our ability to build this, to recommission Duane Arnold very efficiently. The plant’s in great shape. As I said before, the team that’ll be doing the recommissioning is the same team that did the decommissioning. I’ve been out there recently to tour the facility. It’s in good shape. We’ll provide more details on that as we move forward. On your second question on the 30% buyout of CIPCO and Corn Belt, it’s really pretty straightforward. That buyout was done in exchange for us assuming their decommissioning liability. It’s pretty much that straightforward. From our standpoint, we have more than ample decommissioning funds that had already been set aside. I think it’s attractive for us.

I think it’s attractive for CIPCO and Corn Belt as well. Win-win for all parties involved.

Okay. One other question, different topic. It was great to see another 3 GW quarter add, but there was a GW removed from the backlog. Could you maybe just talk about that 1 GW removal and what’s driving that?

Yeah, absolutely, Steve. This is pretty straightforward. As you said, we added 3 GW. I mean, another really strong quarter of origination. We are just seeing a lot of demand for renewables and storage in the market. Remember, out of that 3 GW, we put 1.7 GW into service in the quarter. I think what you’re referencing is the 900 MW. Let me just break that down. We removed 650 MW from backlog, which was pretty conservative by us. I think you know we’re pretty conservative on how we manage the backlog. We did that for various development reasons. This is really on some smaller projects that we’re continuing to manage as we move forward. I think we’re going to get it all back in 2026 and 2027 on that 650 MW, so it’ll just come a little bit later.

Then there was another 250 MW that we just had a little bit of a permitting delay on. We’re just shifting that from 2025 to 2026. When you put that 900 MW together, it’s what, call it one-thirtieth of the backlog. Feel good about getting all of that back. It just comes a little bit later in time. Otherwise, had you included that, we would have been at the bottom end of the 2024, 2025 range. I think as investors saw, we’ve reaffirmed our expectations through 2027, including the fact we’d be disappointed not to be at the high end in the range. These moves really just don’t have any impact on our ability to meet our financial expectations that we’ve communicated to investors. As you look out, a lot of positives to see in the backlog. I mean, 2028 and beyond are shaping up unbelievably well.

We just got a great head start on those years. Overall, we’re in really, really good shape where we sit now. I have no concerns about where the backlog sits. It’s as strong as it’s ever been.

Okay, thank you.

Steve, Conference Operator: The next question comes from the line of Charles Sieving with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Mark Edelman, Director of Investor Relations, NextEra Energy: Hey, guys. Good morning.

John Ketchum, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, NextEra Energy: Good morning.

Mark Edelman, Director of Investor Relations, NextEra Energy: Morning, John. I know you kind of mentioned to Steve you didn’t want to get into the actual CapEx numbers of Duane Arnold, but let me try to maybe ask it a little bit differently and just get into the qualitative part of the plant. I know there’s obviously a bogey of $1.6 billion for a Pennsylvania plant that’s kind of under budget now. You kind of mentioned that this current plant is in good shape. Can you just maybe directionally talk about what you’re seeing with that plant and how we should view it without going into the numbers?

John Ketchum, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, NextEra Energy: Yeah. Hey, thanks, Charles. Hey, Charles, welcome back, by the way. Great to have you back.

Thanks for having me back.

Yeah. It’s great to hear from you. Sure. I’ll just kind of, you know, without going into the numbers, we’ve spent a lot of time going through Duane Arnold, a lot of diligence. I’m going to go back to what I said before. Having the same team that did the decommissioning leading the recommissioning is an enormous advantage because folks know exactly what was done. The plan that we have, we have a lot of certainty around, right? I think the scope is pretty well defined, and we know what needs to be done. The facility, like I said, is in really good shape. I mean, when I went through it, it was like we just kind of put a lock on the door and got the keys out and opened the lock back up. We’re going back through it.

There’s obviously some things, some work that has to be done to bring the plant back online. The plant’s in good shape. We feel very good about our ability to execute against what’s in front of us.

Mark Edelman, Director of Investor Relations, NextEra Energy: Fantastic. John, just one last one is just, I guess, given the lack of additional nuclear sites to kind of repower for you guys, do you see kind of the next wave of deals moving to CCGTs for Energy Resources? Are you seeing demand there, especially given the partnership you have with GE? Thanks.

John Ketchum, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, NextEra Energy: Yeah. Thanks, Charles. We have many ways to grow, which we talked about a month ago. I’ll talk more about those in a minute. One of those ways to grow is through new gas-fired technology. Nobody’s built more gas-fired generation in this country in the last 20 years than NextEra Energy has. We’ve got a lot of experience at it. We’re really a natural to get back into that area because of our development platform. It’s so easy for us to take what we already have in terms of land agents, permitting, all the supply chain capability that we have. You mentioned the partnership that we have with GE Vernova and the strong relationship that we have there, the customer relationships, all the things that go with that development platform. It’s easy for us to pivot into gas.

I’ve said before, we have roughly a 20 GW pipeline already developed because of that development platform and the efficiency that’s built into it. We’re excited about what we’re seeing on the combined cycle side and some of the opportunities that we have. We’ll talk more about this in December. A unique advantage that we have is because it takes a little longer time to build gas-fired generation, call it four or five, maybe six years, a huge leg up that we have that we haven’t talked as much about, and again, we’ll focus on this in December, is all the renewables and storage that we have.

When data centers want to get online now and quickly, and they want to secure a load interconnect by bringing their own generation, we can accommodate that because we have the solar and the storage that’s ready to go, and then the gas can come behind it. We’re in a bit of a unique position there in terms of our ability to really kind of hook and anchor data center buildout as we position our portfolio for these larger-scale data center buildouts. We call data center hubs that can be followed on by gas, maybe SMR technology, going back to the collaboration nationally that we have with Google. Just a lot to be excited about.

Mark Edelman, Director of Investor Relations, NextEra Energy: Got it. Thanks again, John. Big congrats and appreciate the kind words. See you soon.

John Ketchum, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, NextEra Energy: Yeah. See you soon, Charles. Thank you.

Steve, Conference Operator: The next question comes from the line of Nicholas Campanella with Buckley. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. Thanks for all the updates. I just wanted to ask, going back on nuclear, you know, there’s a lot of momentum right now for AP1000. I’m just curious what your appetite would be in participating in something like that, or if, you know, in terms of new nuclear, should we be solely kind of focused on SMR and restarts of current large-scale plants? Thanks.

John Ketchum, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, NextEra Energy: Yeah. I think for us right now, I mean, we have Duane Arnold that we talked about. We have Point Beach. We have Seabrook. We have, you know, we’ll be turning our attention to those two facilities as we optimize. One thing that’s really exciting is that, you know, we probably have 6 GW of SMR capacity across those three sites, not to mention, you know, back to the development platform. We are a nationwide development company, right, that has a national footprint. We also are looking at, you know, greenfield sites as well, going back to that anchor point around having existing generation ready to go that can accommodate phase one, two, three of a data center buildout as we wait for gas-fired generation to come or SMR technology to come, you know, behind that.

We’re doing a lot of work around SMRs that we’ll talk more about, you know, in December. I also want to go back to what I said about SMRs, which is that we’re going to be very disciplined in our capital allocation strategy and making sure that we have the right commercial and financial structure where we limit any financial exposure that we have as we invest in those facilities. When you think about NextEra Energy, I mean, we’re really unique because, you know, the hyperscaler is investing tens of billions of dollars. This is not like the business four or five years ago competing against a lot of small developers. They can’t do this, right?

The folks that can do this are large-scale developers like NextEra Energy that have a strong balance sheet, a track record, the credibility to be able to match what the hyperscaler needs, and the ability to build across generation types, whether it’s renewables, whether it’s storage, whether it’s gas, whether it’s nuclear, whether we need to bring a transmission solution to bear, whether we need to build a gas pipeline lateral to enable a gas buildout. All the things that we bring to the table are pretty unique. Again, combined with that large back balance sheet, the team, and the customer relationships, and the ability to secure load interconnects and work with utilities and co-ops in municipalities. That really kind of puts us in a pretty small group of folks.

As we look at the market, really, I think, you know, I look at the DOE letter that was sent, you know, recently over to FERC and more of a focus on bringing your own generation. I mean, I think that just absolutely plays to all of our strengths and advantages. The future is exciting.

That’s great. I really appreciate that. Good points. I know that you’ve been doing this 6% to 8% outlook for a long time. You’ve basically been beating that every year. You look at some other premium companies out there now doing 7% to 9%. What’s your philosophy and how you’re thinking about long-term growth? Is that a consideration at all as we are thinking about what could be out there on the analyst day? Thanks.

All great questions. We’ll address those on December 8th.

Have a great day.

Thank you.

Steve, Conference Operator: The next question comes from the line of Julian Dumoulin-Smith with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Mark Edelman, Director of Investor Relations, NextEra Energy: Hey, congratulations, Steve. Good to hear from you.

John Ketchum, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, NextEra Energy: Hey, thanks, Julian.

Mark Edelman, Director of Investor Relations, NextEra Energy: Thank you so much. Hey, look, just wanted to follow up on a couple of things here. First, with respect to the gas and contracted gas strategy, can you speak a little bit to what you’re expecting or what success you’ve had thus far? I know this may be digging a little bit into the December update. To the extent possible, can you discuss a little bit of the latest progress? Should we expect more of these hyperscaler-type announcements like Google, to be parlayed back into contracted gas? Is there a cadence that you’d care to share as you think about this ramps up? I know it’s early days in that longer-dated 2030-plus time frame. How would you begin to characterize that opportunity as it is, as it stands today?

John Ketchum, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, NextEra Energy: Yeah. A lot in the hopper is how I would describe it, Julian. A lot of different things that we are working on. I mentioned our data center hub strategy, which I don’t want to spend too much time on today because, again, we’re going to get into that in December. Obviously, building out combined cycle units is a big part of that. We think the things that we have in front of us are attractive across the class of hyperscalers that we see. We think the position that we have around our existing renewable portfolio is an enticing way to secure an early-stage load interconnect as the gas comes later.

The ability to provide gas with renewables and storage or with SMR technology, the ability to build out the infrastructure necessary to accommodate all that, whether it’s transmission, whether it’s gas pipelines, all plays to our strengths and our advantages together with the supply chain capability that we have. In terms of cadence, we look forward to laying this out for you guys in December. I feel really good about the competitive positioning that we have today because, again, I go back to the fact that there are very few folks that can actually garner the trust, the confidence, the balance sheet, all the things that you saw with the partnership that we have with Google. We’re having a lot of success with other hyperscalers as well that look promising for our future. More to come.

Mark Edelman, Director of Investor Relations, NextEra Energy: Excellent. Thanks, John. Appreciate it. Related here, just to elaborate a little bit further on that net originations discussion, can you elaborate a little bit? Obviously, there’s been some media attention around Esmeralda and Jackalope, for instance. Can you speak a little bit about how that fits in? Were they in your backlog or the position? I’m just trying to juxtapose the broader media conversation, which isn’t particularly articulate about this, versus what we’re seeing in the quarterly update.

John Ketchum, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, NextEra Energy: Yeah, absolutely. Esmeralda was just a development project. It was not in our backlog. It was a development project for the future on BLM land. I think the BLM was actually pretty clear that while they were not looking to permit this as one large project, they were going to entertain applications around individual projects. Remember, we have a massive pipeline, right? This was just one piece of it. We spent no money on Esmeralda. It’s a project in development that we could develop someday down the road. There’s really nothing to see there. On Jackalope, that project will extend out a little bit more. We continue to work with the customer there. We’ll see what happens. Again, that’s just one small project in the grand scheme of things for a massive backlog that we have. Don’t forget, that’s why we have 1.5 times coverage on our inventory.

I don’t worry about it at all. We can easily draw from other projects in our pipeline to be able to satisfy customer needs as we go forward. That puts us in an incredibly good position.

Mark Edelman, Director of Investor Relations, NextEra Energy: Excellent. Thanks, John. Appreciate it, team. See you soon.

John Ketchum, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, NextEra Energy: Yeah. Hey, yeah. See you soon, Julian. Thank you.

Steve, Conference Operator: Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Carly Devenport with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. Thanks so much for taking the questions. Maybe just another quick follow-up on the backlog. You know, a lot of the additions this quarter coming beyond the 2027 timeframe. Just as we think about that potential pull forward in demand related to the tax credits rolling off that you all have referred to, is that strictly a 2028-plus opportunity, or is there any opportunity to see that impact ’26, ’27 as well?

John Ketchum, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, NextEra Energy: Yeah. I think the pull forward in demand, Carly, just escalates as you get closer to 2030. You continue to see step-ups there. For 2026 and 2027, we feel very good about where we sit right now. I think we’ve got more quarters to go in terms of filling the 2027 piece. Again, we look at our financial plan for 2026 and 2027 in good shape. What I’m really focused on is that 2028, 2029, 2030 because there are just so many opportunities as you look to the back end of that decade and that natural pull forward that you mentioned that we’ve seen historically where we could see a lot of customer demand not only in 2028, but in 2029 and 2030. We’re so well positioned around FEOC and around our safe harbor position.

I think we have some very unique competitive advantages that we will highlight and spend more time on in December. As I look at the pipeline shaping up around 30 GW and the way it’s shaping up by year, I feel very good about where we sit.

Great. Thank you for that. Maybe just back on Duane Arnold, the $0.16 of average accretion that you mentioned in the first 10 years of the PPA, is there any color that you can provide on the cadence or if there’s significant variability year to year that we should be thinking about?

There is not significant variability year to year. The reason we said that is, remember, there’s refueling outages for nuclear. In refueling years, it’s not that significant of an impact. It moves around a little bit around refueling outages. That’s why we use that language.

Got it. Great. Appreciate that. Thank you.

Steve, Conference Operator: Next question comes from Bill Apicelli with UBS. Please go ahead.

Mark Edelman, Director of Investor Relations, NextEra Energy: Hi. Good morning. Just going back to follow up on Carly’s question around, you know, the pull forward. Maybe you can speak to the development capabilities, right? You’ve sort of been averaging around this, you know, around 3 GW a quarter and the low end of that. You know, where can that go potentially in terms of just from a capability supply chain perspective?

John Ketchum, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, NextEra Energy: We’re really well positioned on our supply, not only on our supply chain and the things we’ve been able to do around batteries and the supply chain, positioning we have around the rest of the parts and equipment that we plan to purchase. You guys know well, I mean, transformers, electric switch gear, other parts of the supply chain. I think that’s going to create a natural competitive advantage, which goes with having a strong balance sheet and a world-class supply chain capability as we go into 2028, 2029, 2030 that uniquely positions us for the opportunity that can come there, right? Because we can do some things that others can’t. I feel very good about, and if you look historically on pull forward years, we have fared very well on a market share basis compared to our competition there.

Also, as we start thinking about being able to not only do what I call kind of the bread and butter business around origination, but then also adding on, being able to fold in renewables and storage into large load solutions, as I’ve mentioned a couple of times on this call. It’s really an incremental opportunity that we haven’t had before, as you think about serving that large load customer. The demand pull forward is something that we’re obviously very focused on and have positioned the business around. I think we’re going to be uniquely capable and positioned to capitalize on the opportunity it’s going to bring.

Mark Edelman, Director of Investor Relations, NextEra Energy: Great. Just shifting gears at FPL, the large load growth, I guess, how is the valuation of that going? I think you’ve talked about maybe 3 GW of initial sites or capability. I’m sure you’ll speak more to this in December. Any color there around, you know, tariff structure or, you know, sort of the work and the conversations around bringing those customers in?

John Ketchum, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, NextEra Energy: Yeah, I’ll turn that over to Armando.

Armando Pimentel, President and Chief Executive Officer, Florida Power & Light Company: All right. Thank you. Good morning. We’ve got a couple of tariffs that are up for approval at the commission that we are going to hear about on November 20th. Regardless of that, we’ve had folks that have been pinging us all year on availability of getting onto our system, when can they get onto our system, and so on. We are no different at Florida Power & Light than many of the utilities that you guys follow around the nation. These hyperscalers and these data center operators are looking to figure out where they can plug in and how quickly they can plug in. I think what John Ketchum and Mike Dunn have mentioned before is that this is a potential opportunity at FPL later this decade. I think for now, that’s right. That could certainly change.

We are spending a lot of time doing engineering studies for everyone that you could imagine. We hope that the environment here in Florida is one that the hyperscalers and data center operators will come to embrace. I mean, why not? We’ve got a great system at a low cost. We feel really good about it.

Mark Edelman, Director of Investor Relations, NextEra Energy: All right. Great, thanks for the time.

Steve, Conference Operator: The next question comes from the line of David Caro with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Mark Edelman, Director of Investor Relations, NextEra Energy: Oh, great. Hey, good morning. I was wondering if you could talk about how renewables are interacting with data centers, especially over the next couple of years for projects that you’ve been working on. I was curious if there’s any % of power needs that you find are typically covered by renewables when you’re powering data centers. Are you seeing any colocation opportunities? How does battery storage get involved? I’m curious if you could give kind of a sense of the typical relationship or design that you’re seeing there.

John Ketchum, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, NextEra Energy: Yeah, David. You know, what we’re seeing there is, you know, data centers want to get going immediately, right? They want to build out the initial phases of their campus, which could end up being 1,000, you know, 3, 4, 5,000 acre campuses. Every 1,000 acres is about a gigawatt of capacity. As they think about permitting and constructing their facility, the first thing they’re looking for is a load interconnect. In a lot of parts of the country, in securing a load interconnect, you’ve got to bring your own generation. What’s unique, I think, about what we can do around renewables is we can get them over the hump over those first few years of being able to identify site, being able to identify a generation solution that’s sufficient to get them that load interconnect, whether it’s through a combination of renewables or renewables and battery storage.

We’ve seen that in a number of places. We’ve also seen the ability to leverage grid lines, where we can do upgrades on a system that can actually free up additional megawatts needed to secure that initial load interconnect. That’s the key. You got to get the load interconnect to be able to take the power off the grid to be able to satisfy the initial phases. Many of the load-serving entities are saying, "Bring your own generation to make that happen." We’re able to do that with renewables, with storage, with grid lines. The plan is to bring the baseload generation behind it. When you can combine a comprehensive solution for the hyperscaler, that’s what they’re looking for, and a trusted partner that they know can get it done over time. We can grow right alongside with them as they’re expanding their existing facility.

Mark Edelman, Director of Investor Relations, NextEra Energy: Got it. Makes sense. That’s helpful. I was wondering if you could talk about what you’re seeing in terms of project returns, the trajectory there. Is there a case for higher returns too as we go forward through the end of the day?

John Ketchum, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, NextEra Energy: Yeah. That’s a great question. I said this a month ago, returns have been higher than I’ve ever seen them in this industry. I think that’s due in part to the unique competitive advantage that we have. It’s exciting for us because as I think about all the opportunities that we have, not only this decade but into the next, re-contracting is a big piece of that. We have a lot of existing generation that rolls off a contract by the end of the decade that we’re going to be able to re-contract into the market at much higher premiums. Look, it’s just supply and demand. It’s that simple. There’s a lot of demand out there, and there’s just not as much supply to match it. That’s commanding premiums in the market and high and attractive returns.

That’s why it’s great to be in a position where we have a really strong pipeline and a really strong supply chain position. I think we’re going to be uniquely positioned going forward to be able to capitalize on what is going to become just a growing market demand, particularly as we get to the end of this decade and into the next.

Mark Edelman, Director of Investor Relations, NextEra Energy: Okay. Great. Thank you.

Steve, Conference Operator: The next question comes from the line of Nick Amicucci with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

John Ketchum, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, NextEra Energy: Hey, good morning, guys. Just wanted to touch upon kind of the evolution that we just kind of left upon. As we kind of think about, you know, over the balance of this decade into the next, how should we be thinking about the kind of the portfolio, the kind of culmination of that? If we think about it by energy and generation source, obviously, we saw, you know, storage kind of pick up here from a backlog perspective. Just interested in kind of hearing your thoughts around it. Yeah. I mean, as I think about the next decade, you know, we’ve always had Florida Power & Light. Florida Power & Light, you know, benefits from being, you know, in the fastest-growing state in the United States, 16th largest economy, you know, in the world, strong growth.

As we accommodate all that population that, you know, continues to move into Florida, don’t see that slowing down, you know, next decade. As you think about our regulated businesses, it’s not just, you know, what I call kind of the baseload Florida Power & Light. It’s the large load with the large load tariff that we have not, you know, had before. It’s electric transmission. There’s an incredible demand for transmission around the country. We have the leading competitive transmission business in NextEra Energy Transmission. A lot of CapEx, you know, opportunities and growth opportunities for NEAT as we go forward. You add on gas transmission as well, not only around the existing pipeline assets that we own today, but also, I think, some long-haul greenfield opportunities that we’ll be talking more about, gas laterals to accommodate hyperscale buildouts.

That really helps to frame even a larger regulated business than we have had historically. You think about, you know, all the other levers, you know, and ways to grow that we have on the energy resources side, not just the renewable business that just gets stronger and stronger as we get into the end of this decade. That’ll carry into the next. Storage as well. We are in a capacity-short market. Storage is economically advantaged. It’s flexible. It can be built very quickly, you know, in 16 to 18 months, whereas gas-fired peakers take four to five years, you know, in many cases. Very flexible, very low cost. We are the world’s leader in storage and have a unique position with our battery supply agreement that’s all domestic and is de-risked from a FEOC standpoint.

I think about nuclear, the agreement that we announced today, not only around Duane Arnold, but the collaboration around advanced nuclear nationwide, all the opportunities we have around Point Beach, we have around Seabrook, and then greenfield advanced nuclear buildout. Gas-fired generation as well, having been the leader in gas-fired generation development over the last 20 years, leveraging the development platform that we have today, the 20 GW pipeline that’s in place. You combine all those capabilities into serving the large load customer, which really, as I said before, creates a unique position for us when you combine all the capabilities we have around generation, all the capabilities we have around electric transmission and gas pipelines, and also our customer supply business. Remember, whenever you’re trying to secure a load interconnect, you’ve got to have a retail energy capability to get that load interconnect from load-serving entities.

The customer supply business plays a very important role. You have to be able to do many, many things to be able to enable a large load transaction. You have to have the balance sheet, and you have to have the team. We also have a 50-state footprint to be able to execute against that, which is really, really unique, given that we’ve been doing that for 20 years. The re-contracting opportunity that I mentioned before, we have a massive long power position that becomes open as we get to the end of this decade. All the artificial intelligence things that we’re doing to really help drive efficiencies and cost savings across the business and revenue opportunities for us as well. You put all those pieces together, we are in really good shape post-2030.

Mark Edelman, Director of Investor Relations, NextEra Energy: Perfect. Yeah. That makes a ton of sense. Just one last quick one for me too. As we kind of think about now, obviously, just topic du jour with Duane Arnold and the potential restart, how are you guys seeing the nuclear fuel supply chain kind of shape up as we kind of think about it going forward, just knowing that, you know, Russia’s going to be coming offline from an enriched uranium capacity in 2028?

John Ketchum, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, NextEra Energy: I think the U.S. government’s very focused on that. The industry is very focused on that. We’ve been very disciplined in terms of how we secure our long-term fuel going forward. I feel good about where we stand. We baked into our numbers that we gave you on Google our position around where nuclear fuel sits today.

Mark Edelman, Director of Investor Relations, NextEra Energy: Great. Thanks, guys.

Steve, Conference Operator: Thank you. This concludes the question and answer session. The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect. Thank you.

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