Renewables Leader NextEra Expands Gas, Nuclear to AI Boom
(Bloomberg) — Neckerra Energy Inc., one of the world’s largest wind and solar power providers, is moving to expand its natural gas and nuclear power plants to meet rising electricity demand driven by artificial intelligence.
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The company is partnering with gas turbine maker GE Vernova Inc. to build power plants for data centers and factories. CEO John Ketchum said on Friday’s earnings call. NextEra also took the first step toward restarting the shuttered Duane Arnold nuclear plant in Iowa.
America’s energy consumption is increasing with data centers and AI, manufacturing and increasing economic electricity. That spurred demand for new gas plants and renewed interest in nuclear power. The blackout sparked new ideas and conventions that were once unthinkable.
“We’re already having a lot of success with renewables, but let’s take advantage of the demand for capacity and gas generation,” Ketchum said in an interview. In cooperation with GE Vernova, “we can get multi-gigawatt solutions for these customers by combining not only gas, but also renewable solutions.”
Ketchum said the strategy would be helped by the Trump administration’s strong support for gas power.
NextEra shares gained as much as 5.8% in New York. The company Florida Power and Light is one of the largest US utilities.
“It’s unbelievable how much this industry has changed in such a short period of time, certainly in the last 15 months to 18 months,” Rebecca Kujawa, head of NextEra’s Energy Resources division, said on the call. “We’ve seen a lot of growth in demand for natural gas.”
G Vernova said data centers prefer gas over variable renewable sources such as wind because the facilities need power during the day. G Vernova CEO Scott Strzyk said this week that orders for gas turbines grew more than 20 gigawatts last year and are expected to be even stronger in 2025.
NextEra has asked U.S. regulators for a permit change for the Duane Arnold nuclear plant, the first step toward restarting the Iowa facility.
NextEra aims to restart and operate the reactor by the end of 2028, it said in an earnings release Friday. Jefferies LLC analysts led by Julien Dumoulin-Smith said in a note: “This is much faster than we and the investors we talk to.”