Dive Brief:
- Florida Power & Light achieved the company’s best-ever service restoration time in response to Hurricane Ian in September, though the effort may ultimately cost customers a collective $1.1 billion, company leaders said Friday during a third-quarter earnings call.
- Despite the impact of Hurricane Ian, Florida Power & Light saw sales increase 1.3% during the third quarter. The utility reported net income of nearly $1.1 billion, $147 million more than it earned in the third quarter of 2021.
- NextEra Energy Resources, the company’s energy development arm, posted third-quarter adjusted earnings of $729 million, a more than 19% increase over that period in 2021, after signing contracts for more than 2.3 GW of new renewable energy and storage projects in the quarter. Renewable energy should continue to see rapid growth thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, company leaders said.
Dive Insight:
NextEra Energy is moving full-steam ahead into a renewable energy future after a costly but confidence-building encounter with Hurricane Ian, company leaders said during a call discussing the company’s third-quarter performance with investors.
FPL restored power to two-thirds of affected customers within a day of beginning restoration, and nearly all customers had power restored within eight days, according to Kirk Crews, executive vice president and chief financial officer of NextEra Energy. Crews attributed this success to both the 20,000 workers who participated in the restoration effort and to two decades of investment in grid hardening and resilience.
Crews noted that despite sustained 150-mile-per-hour winds, FPL did not lose a single transmission pole or tower during Hurricane Ian. The company’s generation fleet also withstood the storm with minimal structural damage. Although 12 million of the company’s solar panels were exposed to the storm, less than 0.3% of the panels sustained damage, and most of those affected were older installations, Crews said.
Although the company’s accounting of restoration costs is not yet complete, Crews said FPL will likely file with the Florida PUC for permission to recover $1.1 billion in costs from customers through a surcharge.
Despite the storm impacts, FPL saw earnings increase during the third quarter due to growing electrical demand. NextEra Energy Resources announced its strong financial results after signing contracts to build an additional 1,215 MW of wind, 965 MW of solar, and 165 MW of battery storage.
The company plans to purchase a portfolio of operational landfill gas-to-electric facilities for $1.1 billion, Crews announced. He indicated the purchase was part of a strategy by NextEra to expand the company’s portfolio of renewable natural gas, hydrogen and other forms of renewable energy now incentivized under the Inflation Reduction Act.
“As the word leader in renewables, with deep energy market expertise, we are having conversations with customers about large-scale opportunities unlike anything we have seen in the past, and while some will take time to develop, we could not be more excited about the future,” Crews said.
The company expects to see immediate savings for customers from the Inflation Reduction Act, and it plans to issue a one-time $25 million refund in January 2023 that reflects the retroactive solar production tax credits the company will receive, Crews said.
