NextEra, Dominion to create huge power biz as AI drives US energy demand

NextEra Energy is seeking to acquire Dominion Energy in an all-stock deal valued at about $67bn, creating a large regulated electric utility. The combined company would serve roughly 10 million utility customer accounts across Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. The region includes a fast-growing population and a major data centre hub in Virginia. The merger is intended to enable faster build-out of power infrastructure for data centres, with NextEra and Dominion together facing about 130 gigawatts of electricity demand. NextEra has pursued data-centre power supply through agreements such as reopening a nuclear plant in Iowa with Google and developing natural-gas-fired data centre hubs in Texas and Pennsylvania. Dominion has nearly 51 gigawatts of contracted data-centre capacity and counts major technology firms among its customers.

"NextEra Energy is seeking to acquire Dominion Energy in an all-stock deal valued at about $67bn, creating a massive power company as the energy needs of artificial intelligence (AI) drive demand higher in the United States. It is one of the biggest proposed mergers so far this year and would create the world's largest regulated electric utility business by market capitalisation, the companies said on Monday."

"The combined company will serve approximately 10 million utility customer accounts across the US states of Florida, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. The region has a fast-growing population and the world's biggest data centre hub, which is in Virginia. The deal will enable a swifter build-out of power infrastructure to deliver electricity to data centres proposing to connect to NextEra and Dominion, which total about 130 gigawatts of electricity demand, the companies' executives said."

"One gigawatt can power about 750,000 homes. The merger builds on NextEra's efforts to tap into surging demand for supplying electricity to data centres developed by Big Tech, largely for training and rolling out AI technologies. Over the last year, the Florida-based company signed an agreement with Alphabet's Google to reopen a nuclear power plant in Iowa."

"It has also been announced as the developer of two Japan-backed, natural-gas-fired data centre hubs in Texas and Pennsylvania. Virginia-based Dominion has nearly 51 gigawatts of contracted data-centre capacity and counts Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Equinix, CoreWeave and CyrusOne as customers. The potential tie-up of the two companies comes at a time when consumers worried about escalating electric bills are pushing back against AI data centres."

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