Big news this morning on the energy front, involving NextEra acquiring our pals at Dominion Energy, “in an all-stock deal valued at nearly $67 billion” (“Dominion is the utility that powers the world’s largest data center market in northern Virginia. NextEra is the largest utility in the S&P 500 by market value. The combined company will be the world leader in renewables and battery storage, the U.S. leader in natural gas generation, and take second place in nuclear power.”).
NextEra is the biggest renewable energy developer in the U.S. with a portfolio of natural gas and nuclear generation as well. The Florida-headquartered power company is also the largest utility in the S&P 500 at a market cap of more than $190 billion.
The deal will create the largest regulated electric utility in the world, the companies said Monday. It will have a market cap of $249 billion and an enterprise value of $420 billion, making it the third-largest company in the energy sector behind oil majors Exxon Mobil and Chevron.
So is this good news? Bad news? Mixed news? How about for those of us (raises hand!) who haven’t been fans of Dominion Energy, to put it mildly (because it’s mostly been about dirty energy – although thanks to the Virginia Clean Economy Act, as well as the rapidly declining costs of clean energy, Dominion in recent years has been building a huge offshore wind project and also significantly more solar power, centralized control as opposed to distributed power, buying influencce with our legislators despite ostensibly being a “state-regulated” monopoly, resisting serious moves towards energy efficiency improvements, etc. etc.) for a looong time. See below for clean energy expert Jigar Shah’s analysis , which is generally quite positive about this merger (note: Shah is a clean energy entrepreneur who “served as director of the Loan Programs Office (LPO) at the U.S. Department of Energy from March 2021 to January 2025”; “Under Shah’s leadership, the LPO more than tripled its staff and reviewed over 100 applications from clean energy companies seeking loans totaling more than $100 billion” – so he definitely knows what he’s talking about…and is also a clean energy/cleantech champion!).
The deal NextEra is in talks to buy Dominion in interesting and a sign of the time. Pair the world’s biggest clean energy operator with the worst run Utility in the USA (2nd only to PG&E bankruptcy). Everyone talks AI, but it is really about competence and execution
Dominion has been a fixer-upper under CEO Bob Blue. Virginia long resisted modernizing its grid, now its legislature is forcing it to enter the 21st century with Grid Utilization, batteries, VPPs. Its $11.5B offshore wind project should be fully complete in 2027.
NextEra isn’t without scars. Its yieldco NextEra Energy Partners collapsed ~60% in 2023 under interest rate pressure, dragging NEE down 25% that year. It quietly rebranded the yieldco in early 2025 to distance itself. It also previously failed in bids for both Hawaiian Electric and Duke Energy.
NextEra operates 3,800+ MW of battery storage today and is spending $5.5B more through 2029 — with a 32-43 GW pipeline through 2032. Dominion was moving so slowly its legislature stepped in to mandate it. Dropping NextEra’s storage expertise onto Virginia’s data center load could be transformative.
Trump killed offshore wind permits, issued a stop-work order on Dominion’s own $11.5B wind farm, and has pushed coal and gas at every turn. He’s also the most merger-friendly president in decades. NextEra just figured out how to use both against him. Irony?
Data centers need power in 18 months, not 10 years. Batteries and VPPs deliver that. New gas plants will fill in 100-300 hour gaps but can’t achieve the speed. NextEra knows this. Now it’s buying the keys to America’s data center capital while Trump holds the door open.
The biggest clean energy consolidation in American history may happen on Donald Trump’s watch — enabled by his own deregulatory merger policies. An administration trying to slow the clean energy transition just greenlighted the deal that locks it in. How do you say irony?
Statement from Clean Virginia:
NextEra Moves to Acquire Dominion Energy, Clean Virginia Urges Extreme Caution
NextEra corrupted Florida’s elections and raised its customers’ bills to record levels. If NextEra and Dominion cannot commit to binding reductions in customer bills and an end to political interference, this deal should be dead on arrival.
Richmond, Va. – Clean Virginia today responded to the announcement that NextEra Energy has entered an agreement to acquire Dominion Energy, calling on Governor Spanberger, Attorney General Jones, Virginia lawmakers, national regulators, and the State Corporation Commission (SCC) to subject the proposed merger to the most rigorous scrutiny possible.
“This deal would hand control of Virginia’s electric grid to a company with a deeply troubling track record,” said Brennan Gilmore, executive director of Clean Virginia. “Before Virginia ratepayers are locked into a relationship with NextEra Energy, every policymaker and regulator in the Commonwealth needs to understand what NextEra has done in Florida and ask hard questions about whether Virginians can expect anything different.”
“Virginians don’t choose their electric utility. That’s why the law requires utilities to serve the public interest — and precisely why any merger must be judged by one standard: does it make life better for the people who have no other option?” Gilmore continued.
NextEra, through its principal Florida Power & Light (FPL) subsidiary, has been connected to election manipulation, surveillance of journalists, co-optation of civil rights organizations and the use of dark money networks to capture regulators and defeat energy competition. The company’s former CEO, who was in charge during many of these schemes, resigned abruptly in 2023 amid federal scrutiny. The company also recently settled a securities fraud class action lawsuit.
Meanwhile, FPL customers in Florida are experiencing what opponents have called the largest rate hike in American history. Recent research showed that Florida Power & Light’s profits in 2025 made up a whopping 27.4% of a customer’s electric bill – one of the highest ratios in the country and more than 13 percentage points higher than the national average.
Clean Virginia is particularly alarmed by the structure of the proposed deal. While NextEra is touting $2.25 billion in one-time bill credits to Dominion customers, this headline figure would amount to only a temporary payout, not lasting relief on customers’ monthly bills. At the same time, the company projects 11% annual rate base growth through 2032. Because utilities earn profits on their rate base, rapid growth can drive higher long-term costs for customers unless the utility’s return on equity (ROE) — the utility’s allowed profit rate — is meaningfully reduced. Dominion’s announcement makes no commitment to lowering ROE costs or reducing customer bills over the long term. In fact, both NextEra and Dominion have repeatedly pushed for ROEs well above historical and market-based levels.
“One-time credits are a down payment on political goodwill, not a guarantee of affordability,” Gilmore said. “The question Virginians need answered is simple: What would NextEra charge us to earn its profit, and for how long? That number, return on equity, is absent from everything they’ve said today. Virginians should be extremely skeptical given Next Era’s long history of increasing prices to customers.”
The merger is subject to approval by Virginia’s State Corporation Commission, as well as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and utility commissions in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida.
Clean Virginia is calling on the SCC to hold robust public hearings and require full disclosure of NextEra’s history and practices of political influence. The SCC should follow the example of other state regulators: demand binding and enforceable ROE reduction commitments and require safeguards to protect Virginians from paying for outside debt or unwarranted inter-affiliate purchases, among other affordability and service-improvement commitments. Any merger approval must include ironclad commitments to honor Virginia’s Clean Economy Act — the law Virginia’s customers and policymakers fought for and that Dominion is legally bound to deliver. The SCC should also guarantee that consumer advocates have full standing and resources throughout the proceeding. The General Assembly and Governor Spanberger should ensure that the SCC and Attorney General’s Division of Consumer Counsel have the resources to fully review this proposed merger.
Clean Virginia is also calling on members of the Virginia General Assembly to take action to protect the integrity of our elections and political process from interference. NextEra’s proven track record of corruption further demonstrates the need for the General Assembly to ban corporate campaign contributions. Additionally, the legislature should examine additional action to protect ratepayers before this transaction closes.
“Virginia has spent years fighting to reform a utility monopoly that puts shareholders ahead of customers,” said Gilmore. “We cannot allow this merger to make that problem larger, more powerful, and harder to fix. The SCC process is the moment Virginia gets to set the terms. If NextEra cannot commit to binding reductions in customer bills and a clean break from its history of political manipulation, this deal should be dead on arrival.”
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Clean Virginia is a nonprofit advocacy organization dedicated to removing corporate money from Virginia politics and reforming utility regulation to put customers first. Learn more at cleanvirginia.org.
