NextEra Energy Resources signed contracts for a record 4 GW of new generation projects during the first quarter of 2026, including 2.2 GW of solar, 1.3 GW of battery storage and .5 GW of wind generation, according to regulatory filings and company executives.
Growing electricity demand and the increased scale of new generation projects explain the majority of the increased contracting, NextEra Chairman, President and CEO John Ketchum said on an earnings call last week.
“We have really moved away from building 200 or 300 MW — that does not get it done for a hyperscaler,” Ketchum said. “We are looking at building 2 to 5 GW for hyperscalers.”
The company now expects to build up to 41.5 GW of solar, 43 GW of battery storage, 14.5 GW of wind, 8 GW of gas and 600 MW of nuclear generation by the end of 2032. NextEra's combined gas and electric transmission business is expected to reach $20 billion by 2032, Ketchum said.
Although Ketchum said the company has secured enough gas turbines for its projects, it has run into challenges building more gas generation more quickly due to a dearth of skilled labor. The same contractors who build gas plants are engaged building other projects such as LNG terminals and even data centers, leading to long development timelines, he said.
Rising demand is also raising power prices. Expiring power purchase agreements are being replaced at an average of $20/MWh above prior contract prices, NextEra Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Michael Dunne told analysts on Thursday.
NextEra’s quarterly report with the Securities and Exchange Commission also revealed some details of a proposed $150 million settlement reached in March to end a lawsuit claiming company executives made false or misleading statements about financial and political activities of its subsidiary, Florida Power & Light. The settlement has not yet been approved by the courts.
The settlement comes after the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals resurrected the lawsuit, reversing a lower court’s dismissal. Florida Power & Light, which serves more than 6 million customers, is the largest electric utility in the U.S.
Company officials did not discuss the settlement during Thursday's call, nor did they discuss several other pending cases against it alleging breaches of fiduciary duties and violations of securities laws.
Data center ‘hub’ strategy
The company's development arm, NextEra Energy Resources, continues to market its ability to build generation, transmission and gas pipeline projects to serve data center “hubs” throughout the U.S.
Ketchum said the company’s hubs include two projects it plans to build for the U.S. Department of Commerce and the government of Japan in Texas and Pennsylvania. NextEra Energy Resources intends to supply these two projects, to be build under a U.S.-Japanese trade agreement, with 9.5 GW of new gas-fired generation.
Ketchum said the company is working towards signing “definitive agreements” for the DOC-Japanese projects in the next two to three months.
While most of the discussion to date has focused on islanded, energy-independent hubs, Ketchum said he believes these hubs will eventually connect to the grid and could benefit all electric customers.
“I truly believe that we need to be, as a country, looking at data centers as giant batteries that sit behind the grid,” he said.
Separately, FPL expects to sign the first customer under its new large load tariff, which went into effect in January, by the end of this year, company officials said. Service to new large load could begin as early as 2028.
Under the terms of the new tariff, each GW of new large load built at FPL will require about $2 billion in capital expenses, NextEra Chairman, President and CEO John Ketchum said.
The Florida utility added some 100,000 new customers in 2025 and plans to build 4 GW of new gas-fired generation, 12 GW of solar and 7 GW of battery storage over the next 10 years to keep pace with local growth, Ketchum said.
