NextEra considering new nuclear capacity

Speaking during a call with investors on Tuesday, NextEra CEO John Ketchum said its NextEra Energy Resources subsidiary "remains focused on both optimising and adding generating capacity to its nuclear fleet. We continue to advance the recommissioning of our Duane Arnold nuclear plant in Iowa, made possible by the 25-year power purchase agreement with Google we announced last year. Our nuclear fleet outside Florida is also ripe for advanced nuclear development.

"That's why we are spending time closely evaluating the capabilities of various SMR OEMs. All told, we have 6 gigawatts of SMR co-location opportunities at our nuclear sites and are working to develop new greenfield sites. Of course, any nuclear new build would have to include the right commercial terms and conditions with appropriate risk-sharing mechanisms that limit our ultimate exposure."

NextEra Energy Resources, along with its affiliate company Florida Power & Light Company, operates seven nuclear units at four sites: Turkey Point and St Lucie in Florida; Seabrook in New Hampshire; and Point Beach in Wisconsin. Additionally, it plans to restart the Duane Arnold plant in Iowa, which ceased operations in 2020. The plant is scheduled to become operational at the beginning of 2029, pending regulatory approvals.

In October last year, NextEra Energy signed two agreements with Google, including a 25-year purchase power agreement (PPA) from the Duane Arnold plant, as well as agreeing to explore the development of new nuclear generation to be deployed in the USA.

NextEra announced in December an expansion of its collaboration with Google Cloud. Together, the companies plan to jointly develop multiple new gigawatt-scale data centre campuses with accompanying generation and capacity. According to NextEra, the companies are already in the process of developing their first three campuses and are working to identify additional locations. Also in December, NextEra announced it had reached about 2.5 GW of clean energy contracts with Meta through the signing of 11 PPAs, mainly from nine solar projects.

"Our breadth and depth allow us to have a multi-year, multi-gigawatt, multi-technology discussion with hyperscalers," Ketchum said. "These data centre hub opportunities, as we call them, represent a powerful channel to originate large generation projects with expansion opportunities where we can grow alongside our hyperscaler partner rather than building on a project-by-project basis.

"As we discussed in December, our data centre hub strategy is all part of our new '15 by 35' origination channel and goal for Energy Resources to
place in service 15 gigawatts of new generation for data centre hubs by 2035."

He added: "We currently have 20 potential hubs we are discussing with the market, and we expect that number to rise to 40 by year end. While we won't convert every single hub, I'll be disappointed if we don't double our goal and deliver at least 30 gigawatts through this channel by 2035."