Every AI Data Center Needs a Power Bill. This Company Sends It.

Research Desk · September 7, 2026

A Florida Power & Light solar energy center in DeSoto County, Florida. Photo via Wikimedia Commons. [Confirm the file page credit and licence, then finalize this line.]

Friday's jobs report was supposed to be good news. The economy added 162,000 jobs in August against expectations near 55,000, and the unemployment rate held at 4.1%.

Stocks fell anyway. Traders read the strength as room for the Federal Reserve to raise rates at its September meeting, pushing the implied odds to roughly 58%. The Dow closed down about 0.5%.

Rising rates are supposed to be a problem for utilities. They are capital-hungry businesses, and their dividends compete head-on with Treasury yields, which finished the week near 4.78% on the 10-year note.

Utilities finished green regardless. Technology, industrials and utilities were the only three sectors to close higher on Friday, which is the market's way of saying something other than interest rates is now driving the group.

That something is electricity demand. And the largest company in the sector, NextEra Energy (NYSE: NEE), spent last week clearing the biggest remaining hurdle in front of a deal that would make it the largest regulated utility in the world.

Two Businesses, One Meter

NextEra is really two companies under a single ticker, and the pairing is the entire point.

The first is Florida Power & Light, a regulated monopoly serving roughly 5.9 million accounts. Think of it as a landlord whose rent schedule is set by a state board.

FPL invests in poles, plants and solar farms. Florida regulators then allow it to charge customers enough to earn an approved return on that investment. Unglamorous, and highly predictable.

The arrangement is working. FPL's trailing 12-month return on equity ran 11.7%, its regulated capital employed grew 9.3% year over year, and customer bills sit roughly 30% below the national average. That last figure is the political cushion that keeps a rate case from turning hostile.

The second business, NextEra Energy Resources, sells power to everyone else. It is the world's largest generator of wind and solar, and it signs long-term contracts with corporate buyers rather than waiting on a regulator.

Here is why that matters now. A hyperscale data center behaves less like an office park and more like an aluminum smelter. It draws enormous power around the clock, it cannot tolerate an interruption, and it needs a supplier willing to commit years in advance.

Very few companies in North America can sign that contract. NextEra is one of them.

What Is Already Under Contract

The number to anchor on is 35.1 gigawatts. That is the size of the Energy Resources backlog after 3.6 gigawatts were added in the second quarter alone.

A backlog is the utility version of a homebuilder's order book: houses sold before ground is broken. These are contracted megawatts with counterparties attached, not a market-size estimate on a slide.

On the regulated side, FPL raised its large-load expectation to 8 gigawatts by 2032, up from 6, with roughly 12 gigawatts in advanced discussions. Management is working through about 30 data center hubs and wants 40 under discussion by year end.

Two outside deals show the scale of what is arriving. In July, NextEra joined Brookfield on a data center campus at the Department of Energy's Paducah site in western Kentucky, a project valued above $100 billion. In August, it signed definitive agreements with the U.S. Department of Commerce and the Government of Japan to fund up to 10 gigawatts of gas-fired generation.

The financials are keeping pace. Second-quarter adjusted earnings came in at $1.15 per share, up about 9.5% from a year earlier.

Management reaffirmed 2026 adjusted earnings guidance of $3.92 to $4.02 and said it is aiming at the top of that range. Beyond this year, it is targeting 8% or better annual earnings growth through 2032, measured off a 2025 base of $3.71.

The Dominion Deal Cleared Its Vote

On Thursday, September 3, shareholders of both NextEra and Dominion Energy approved their proposed combination. At NextEra, 99.47% of votes cast were in favor.

The terms are all stock: 0.8138 NextEra shares for each Dominion share, valuing the transaction at roughly $66.8 billion. Existing NextEra holders end up with about 74.5% of the combined company, Dominion holders with about 25.5%.

The result would serve roughly 10 million customers and keep the NextEra name and its New York Stock Exchange listing.

For an income investor, the geography is the interesting part. Dominion's home territory in Northern Virginia is the largest data center market on earth. NextEra would be buying the regulated utility that already sits underneath it.

Risk Factors

The clearest risk is the one that moved Friday's tape. If the Fed hikes and the 10-year pushes past 4.78%, a 3.0% dividend competes poorly against a risk-free alternative, and a company building this much becomes more expensive to finance.

The second is regulatory, and it is live. Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger registered as a party to the State Corporation Commission review, pressing on affordability, jobs and clean energy investment. Maine Governor Janet Mills argued the combination would hand NextEra too much sway over New England energy assets.

Closing is targeted for the second half of 2027, and conditions or delay are realistic outcomes rather than tail risks. Winning approval also carries a price: NextEra shareholders would fund $1.78 billion in bill credits for Virginia customers.

Third is dilution. Alongside the merger vote, shareholders approved raising authorized common shares from 3.2 billion to 5 billion. All-stock deals dilute by design.

Fourth is lumpiness. Second-quarter revenue of $7.53 billion missed consensus near $8.19 billion even as earnings beat, a reminder that project timing moves the top line around quarter to quarter.

What the Price Says

NextEra closed Friday at $83.43, down 0.75% on the day. That is roughly 15% below the 52-week high of $98.75 and about 20% above the 52-week low of $69.24.

At that price the stock trades near 20.8 times the top end of this year's guidance, with a forward multiple around 20.5 and a trailing multiple of 18.75. Full, not stretched.

The dividend is $2.49 a year, a 3.0% yield, paid quarterly at $0.6232. Management has guided to roughly 10% dividend growth for 2026 off a 2024 base, then 6% a year through 2028.

In practical terms: a $25,000 position buys about 299 shares and pays roughly $745 a year, arriving every three months. Hold the guided 6% growth rate and that same block of shares is paying closer to $1,000 a year within five years.

Wall Street is constructive. Across 20 analysts the consensus rating is Buy with an average target of $98.39, about 18% above Friday's close. Morgan Stanley carries an Overweight rating at $114, BMO an Outperform at $96.

The bear case has a number attached too. Utilities have traded closer to 17 times earnings in higher-rate stretches. Apply that multiple to the top end of guidance and the stock is worth about $68, roughly 18% below Friday's close and just under its 52-week low.

The Bottom Line

NextEra sells the one thing every artificial-intelligence headline depends on and almost nobody writes about: the electricity.

The demand is contracted rather than forecast. The regulated half of the business earns an approved return. And the vote that cleared last Thursday points at a company serving roughly 10 million customers, with the densest data center corridor in the country sitting inside its future territory.

The share price already reflects a good deal of that. Twenty times earnings is not a discount, and the Virginia review can still attach conditions worth real money.

What a shareholder is buying near $83 is a 3.0% payout with a guided growth rate behind it, from a company whose largest customers are contractually obligated to keep buying. In a week when the Fed decides the headlines, that arithmetic does not change.