(Bloomberg) — Nextera Energy Inc., one of the world’s largest providers of wind and solar power, is moving to expand its natural gas and nuclear generation in an effort to meet growing demand for electricity fueled by artificial intelligence.
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The company is partnering with gas turbine manufacturer Ge Vernova Inc. to build power generation for data centers and factories, Chief Executive Officer John Ketchum said on Friday’s earnings call. Nextera also took the first step to restart its shuttered Duane Arnold nuclear plant in Iowa.
Energy consumption in the US is growing, driven by data centers and AI, along with manufacturing and the increasing electrification of the economy. This has fueled demand for new gas plants and rekindled interest in nuclear power. The boom in electricity has fueled new ideas and offers that would have been unimaginable in the past.
“We already have a lot of success with renewables, but let’s take advantage of the need for generating capacity and gas,” Ketchum said in an interview. In partnership with Ge Vernova, “we can find multi-gigawatt solutions for these customers, not just gas, but combined with renewable solutions,” he said.
Ketchum also said the strategy will be helped by the Trump administration’s strong support for gas power.
Nexter shares in New York gained as much as 5.8%. The company also owns Florida Power & Light, one of America’s largest utilities.
“It cannot be understated how much that industry has changed in a very short time, really the last 15 months to 18 months,” said Rebecca Kujawa, branch manager of Nextera Energy Resources. “We’ve seen quite a bit of an increase in demand for natural gas.”
Ge Vernova said data centers favor gas over intermittent renewables like wind because the facilities require power around the clock. Scott Strazik, CEO of GE Vernova, said this week that orders for gas turbines more than doubled to 20 gigawatts last year, and he expects it to be even stronger in 2025.
Nextera has asked U.S. regulators for a licensing change for the Duane Arnold nuclear plant, the first step toward a potential restart of the Iowa facility.
Nextera aims to restart and restart the reactor by the end of 2028, it said in an earnings release on Friday. “That’s much faster than we and investors are talking about expectations,” Jefferies LLC analysts led by Julien Dumoulin-Smith said in a note.
