NextEra Energy Inc Profile
NextEra Energy, Inc. (NEE) operates as an electric power and energy infrastructure company in North America and a leader in the renewable energy industry.
NEE has two principal businesses, FPL (Florida Power & Light Company) and NEER (an operating segment consisted of NextEra Energy Resources (NextEra Energy Resources, LLC) and NEET (NextEra Energy Transmission, LLC)).
FPL is the largest electric utility in the state of Florida and one of the largest electric utilities in the U.S. FPL’s strategic focus is centered on investing in generation, transmission and distribution facilities to deliver on its value proposition of low customer bills, high reliability, outstanding customer service and clean energy for the benefit of its approximately 5.9 million customer accounts.
NEER is the world's largest generator of renewable energy from the wind and sun, as well as a world leader in battery storage. NEER’s strategic focus is centered on the development, construction and operation of long-term contracted assets throughout the U.S. and Canada, primarily consisting of clean energy assets, such as renewable generation facilities, and electric transmission facilities, as well as providing other clean energy solutions to its customers.
In January 2019, NEE acquired Gulf Power Company, a rate-regulated electric utility engaged in the generation, transmission, distribution and sale of electric energy in northwest Florida. On January 1, 2021, FPL and Gulf Power Company merged, with FPL as the surviving entity. However, during 2021, FPL continued to be regulated as two separate ratemaking entities in the former service areas of FPL and Gulf Power Company.
FPL
FPL is a rate-regulated electric utility engaged primarily in the generation, transmission, distribution and sale of electric energy in Florida. FPL is the largest electric utility in the state of Florida and one of the largest electric utilities in the U.S. As of December 31, 2023, FPL had 33,276 MW of net generating capacity, approximately 90,000 circuit miles of transmission and distribution lines and 883 substations. FPL provides service to its electric customers through an integrated transmission and distribution system that links its generation facilities to its customers.
FPL serves more than 12 million people through approximately 5.9 million customer accounts.
Customers
FPL's primary source of operating revenues is from its retail customer base; it also serves a limited number of wholesale customers within Florida.
For both retail and wholesale customers, the prices (or rates) that FPL may charge are approved by regulatory bodies, by the FPSC in the case of retail customers and by the FERC in the case of wholesale customers.
Franchise Agreements
FPL's service to its electric retail customers is provided primarily under franchise agreements negotiated with municipalities or counties. During the term of a franchise agreement, which is typically 30 years, the municipality or county agrees not to form its own utility, and FPL has the right to offer electric service to residents. As of December 31, 2023, FPL held 226 franchise agreements with various municipalities and counties in Florida with varying expiration dates through 2053. These franchise agreements cover the vast majority of FPL's retail customer base in Florida. As of December 31, 2023, FPL also provided service to customers in 10 other municipalities and to 27 unincorporated areas within its service area without franchise agreements pursuant to the general obligation to serve as a public utility. FPL relies upon Florida law for access to public rights of way.
FPL Sources of Generation
As of December 31, 2023, FPL's resources for serving load consisted of approximately 33,520 MW of net generating capacity, of which 33,276 MW were from FPL-owned facilities and 244 MW were available through PPAs. FPL owned and operated 44 units with generating capacity of 24,254 MW that primarily use natural gas and 66 solar generation facilities with generating capacity totaling 4,803 MW. In addition, FPL owned, or had undivided interests in, and operated 4 nuclear units with net generating capacity totaling 3,502 MW and had joint ownership interests in 3 coal units located in Mississippi and Georgia it did not operate with net generating capacity totaling 717 MW. FPL retired its share of two coal units in Mississippi in January 2024 and the remaining one in Georgia is expected to be retired in 2028. FPL also develops and constructs battery storage projects, which when combined with its solar projects, serve to enhance its ability to meet customer needs for a nearly firm generation source. As of December 31, 2023, FPL had 469 MW of battery storage capacity that delivers energy to the transmission system. FPL customer usage and operating revenues are typically higher during the summer months, largely due to the prevalent use of air conditioning in its service area.
FPL placed 894 MW of solar generating capacity in service in January 2024 and is in the process of constructing an additional 1,341 MW and 894 MW of solar generating capacity, which is expected to be placed in service in 2024 and in 2025, respectively.
Fuel Sources
FPL relies upon a mix of fuel sources for its generation facilities, the ability of some of its generation facilities to operate on both natural gas and low sulfur diesel, and on purchased power to maintain the flexibility to achieve a more economical fuel mix in order to respond to market and industry developments. In 2023, FPL placed a hydrogen facility in service that blends green hydrogen with natural gas at an existing natural gas generation facility.
Significant Fuel and Transportation Contracts
As of December 31, 2023, FPL had the following significant fuel and transportation contracts in place:
Firm transportation contracts with ten different transportation suppliers for natural gas pipeline capacity for an aggregate maximum delivery quantity of 2,836,000 MMBtu/day with expiration dates through 2042;
Several contracts for the supply of uranium and the conversion, enrichment and fabrication of nuclear fuel with expiration dates through 2037; and
Short- and medium-term natural gas supply contracts to provide a portion of FPL's anticipated needs for natural gas, with the remainder of FPL's natural gas requirements being purchased in the spot market.
Nuclear Operations
As of December 31, 2023, FPL owned, or had undivided interests in, and operated the four nuclear units in Florida discussed below. FPL's nuclear units are periodically removed from service to accommodate planned refueling and maintenance outages, including inspections, repairs and certain other modifications.
NRC regulations require FPL to submit a plan for decontamination and decommissioning five years before the projected end of plant operation. If the license renewals are approved by the NRC, FPL's plans provide for St. Lucie Unit No. 1 to be shut down in 2056 with decommissioning activities to be integrated with the dismantlement of St. Lucie Unit No. 2 commencing in 2063. If the NRC approves an additional 20 years of operations, FPL's plans provide for the dismantlement of Turkey Point Units Nos. 3 and 4 with decommissioning activities commencing in 2052 and 2053, respectively.
FPL's nuclear facilities use both on-site storage pools and dry storage casks to store spent nuclear fuel generated by these facilities, which are expected to provide sufficient storage of spent nuclear fuel that is generated at these facilities through license expiration, as well as through any pending license extensions.
FPL Energy Marketing and Trading
FPL's Energy Marketing & Trading division (EMT) buys and sells wholesale energy commodities, such as natural gas, low sulfur diesel, electricity and renewable energy credits (RECs) from certain FPL solar generation assets. EMT procures natural gas and low sulfur diesel for FPL's use in power generation and sells excess natural gas, low sulfur diesel and electricity. EMT also uses derivative instruments (primarily swaps, options and forwards) to manage the physical and financial risks inherent in the purchase and sale of fuel and electricity. Substantially all of the results of EMT's activities are passed through to customers in the fuel or capacity clauses.
FPL Regulation
FPL's operations are subject to regulation by a number of federal, state and other organizations, including but not limited to, the following:
The FPSC, which has jurisdiction over retail rates, service area, issuances of securities, and planning, siting and construction of facilities, among other things;
The FERC, which oversees the acquisition and disposition of electric generation, transmission and other facilities, transmission of electricity and natural gas in interstate commerce, proposals to build and operate interstate natural gas pipelines and storage facilities, and wholesale purchases and sales of electric energy, among other things;
The NERC, which, through its regional entities, establishes and enforces mandatory reliability standards, subject to approval by the FERC, to ensure the reliability of the U.S. electric transmission and generation system and to prevent major system blackouts;
The NRC, which has jurisdiction over the operation of nuclear power plants through the issuance of operating licenses, rules, regulations and orders; and
The EPA, which has the responsibility to maintain and enforce national standards under a variety of environmental laws, in some cases delegating authority to state agencies. The EPA also works with industries and all levels of government, including federal and state governments, in a wide variety of voluntary pollution prevention programs and energy conservation efforts.
NEER
NEER, consisted of NEE's competitive energy and rate-regulated transmission businesses, is a diversified clean energy business with a strategy that emphasizes the development, construction and operation of long-term contracted assets with a focus on clean energy. NEE reports NextEra Energy Resources and NEET, a rate-regulated transmission business, on a combined basis for segment reporting purposes, and the combined segment is referred to as NEER.
The NEER segment owns, develops, constructs, manages and operates electric generation facilities in wholesale energy markets in the U.S. and Canada and also includes assets and investments in other businesses with a clean energy focus, such as battery storage and renewable fuels. NEER, with approximately 30,600 MW of total net generating capacity as of December 31, 2023, is one of the largest wholesale generators of electric power in the U.S., including approximately 30,080 MW of net generating capacity across 41 states and 520 MW of net generating capacity in 4 Canadian provinces. As of December 31, 2023, NEER operates facilities, in which it has partial or full ownership interests, with a total generating capacity of approximately 37,700 MW.
NEER primarily sells its capacity and/or energy output through long-term power sales agreements with utilities, retail electricity providers, power cooperatives, municipal electric providers and commercial and industrial customers. NEER produces the majority of its electricity from clean and renewable sources as described more fully below. In addition, NEER develops and constructs battery storage projects, which when combined with its renewable projects, serve to enhance its ability to meet customers' firm capacity needs, or as standalone facilities. NEER is the world's largest generator of renewable energy from the wind and sun based on 2023 MWh produced on a net generation basis, as well as a world leader in battery storage. The NEER segment also owns, develops, constructs and operates rate-regulated transmission facilities in North America. As of December 31, 2023, NEER's rate-regulated transmission facilities and the transmission lines that connect its electric generation facilities to the electric grid are consisted of approximately 330 substations and 3,585 circuit miles of transmission lines.
NEER also engages in energy-related commodity marketing and trading activities, including entering into financial and physical contracts. These contracts primarily include power and fuel commodities and their related products for the purpose of providing full energy and capacity requirements services, primarily to distribution utilities in certain markets, and offering customized power and fuel and related risk management services to wholesale customers, as well as to hedge the production from NEER's generation assets that is not sold under long-term power supply agreements. In addition, NEER participates in natural gas, natural gas liquids and oil production through operating and non-operating ownership interests, and in pipeline infrastructure construction, management and operations, through either wholly owned subsidiaries or noncontrolling or joint venture interests, hereafter referred to as the gas infrastructure business. NEER also hedges the expected output from its gas infrastructure production assets to protect against price movements.
NEP – Through NEP OpCo, NEP acquires, manages and owns contracted clean energy assets with stable long-term cash flows with a focus on renewable energy projects. NEP's assets include energy projects contributed by or acquired from NextEra Energy Resources, or acquired from third parties, as well as ownership interests in a contracted natural gas pipeline acquired from third parties. NEP also invests to repower or expand certain of its assets. NextEra Energy Resources' indirect limited partnership interest in NEP OpCo based on the number of outstanding NEP OpCo common units was approximately 51.4% as of December 31, 2023. As of December 31, 2023, NEP owned, or had a partial ownership interest in, a portfolio of contracted renewable energy assets consisting of wind, solar and battery storage projects with energy project capacity totaling approximately 10,118 MW and a contracted natural gas pipeline all located in the U.S. NextEra Energy Resources operates essentially all of the energy projects in NEP's portfolio and its ownership interest in the portfolio's capacity was approximately 4,786 MW as of December 31, 2023.
Clean Energy and Other Operations
NEER sells products associated with its generation facilities (energy, capacity, RECs and ancillary services) in competitive markets in regions where those facilities are located. Customer transactions may be supplied from NEER generation facilities or from purchases in the wholesale markets, or from a combination thereof.
Generation Assets
NEER's portfolio of generation assets primarily consists of generation facilities with long-term power sales agreements for substantially all of their capacity and/or energy output. Information related to contracted generation assets as of December 31, 2023 was as follows: represented approximately 28,759 MW of total net generating capacity; weighted-average remaining contract term of the power sales agreements, including the remaining life of the PTCs associated with repowered wind facilities, of approximately 15 years, based on forecasted contributions to earnings and forecasted amounts of electricity produced by the repowered wind facilities; and several contracts for the supply of uranium and the conversion, enrichment and fabrication of nuclear fuel for all nuclear units with expiration dates through 2033.
NEER's merchant generation assets primarily consist of generation facilities that do not have long-term power sales agreements to sell their capacity and/or energy output and therefore require active marketing and hedging. Merchant generation assets as of December 31, 2023 represented approximately 1,842 MW of total net generating capacity, including 805 MW from nuclear generation and 1,032 MW from other peak generation facilities, and are primarily located in the Northeast region of the U.S.
NEER Generation Assets Fuel/Technology Mix
During 2023, NextEra Energy Resources generated approximately 96 million megawatt hours utilizing the following mix of fuel sources for generation facilities in which it has an ownership interest:
Wind Facilities
Located in 23 states in the U.S. and 4 provinces in Canada;
Operated a total generating capacity of approximately 24,970 MW as of December 31, 2023; and
Ownership interests in a total net generating capacity of approximately 20,147 MW as of December 31, 2023, such as essentially all MW are from contracted wind assets located primarily throughout Texas and the West and Midwest regions of the U.S. and Canada; and added approximately 1,651 MW of new generating capacity in the U.S. in 2023 and sold assets to NEP totaling approximately 292 MW.
Solar Facilities
Located in 31 states in the U.S.;
Operated photovoltaic and solar thermal facilities with a total generating capacity of approximately 7,650 MW as of December 31, 2023; and
Ownership interests in solar facilities with a total net generating capacity of approximately 5,856 MW as of December 31, 2023, such as essentially all MW are from contracted solar facilities located primarily throughout the West and South regions of the U.S.; and added approximately 2,073 MW of generating capacity in the U.S. in 2023 and sold assets to NEP totaling approximately 122 MW.
Nuclear Facilities
As of December 31, 2023, NextEra Energy Resources was the sole owner of the two Point Beach nuclear units and was the largest joint owner of the Seabrook nuclear facility. NEER's nuclear units are periodically removed from service to accommodate planned refueling and maintenance outages, including inspections, repairs and certain other modifications. Scheduled nuclear refueling outages require the unit to be removed from service for variable lengths of time.
NEER is responsible for all nuclear unit operations and the ultimate decommissioning of the nuclear units, the cost of which is shared on a pro-rata basis by the joint owners with respect to the Seabrook unit. NRC regulations require plant owners to submit a plan for decontamination and decommissioning five years before the projected end of plant operation. NEER's nuclear facilities use both on-site storage pools and dry storage casks to store spent nuclear fuel generated by these facilities, which, based on existing regulations, are expected to provide sufficient storage of spent nuclear fuel that is generated at these facilities through current license expiration, as well as through any pending license extensions.
NEER also maintains an approximately 70% interest in Duane Arnold, a nuclear facility located in Iowa that ceased operations in August 2020.
Other Clean Energy
NEER's portfolio also includes assets and investments in other businesses with a clean energy focus, such as battery storage and renewable fuels. As of December 31, 2023, NextEra Energy Resources had net ownership interests in approximately 2,624 MW of battery storage capacity. In addition, NextEra Energy Resources owns, or has a partial ownership interest in, a portfolio of 29 biogas projects, one of which is an operating renewable natural gas facility and the others of which are primarily operating landfill gas-to-electric facilities.
Other Operations
Gas Infrastructure Business – As of December 31, 2023, NextEra Energy Resources had ownership interests in natural gas pipelines, the most significant of which are discussed below, and in oil and gas shale formations located primarily in the Midwest and South regions of the U.S.
In December 2023, NEP completed the sale of its ownership interests in a portfolio of natural gas pipelines located in south Texas.
Rate-Regulated Transmission – As of December 31, 2023, certain entities within the NEER segment had ownership interests in rate-regulated transmission and related facilities.
Customer Supply – NEER provides commodities-related products to customers, engages in energy-related commodity marketing and trading activities and includes the operations of a retail electricity provider. Through NextEra Energy Resources subsidiary PMI, NEER:
Manages risk associated with fluctuating commodity prices and optimizes the value of NEER's power generation and gas infrastructure production assets through the use of swaps, options, futures and forwards;
Sells output from NEER's plants that is not sold under long-term contracts and procures fuel for use by NEER's generation fleet;
Provides full energy and capacity requirements to customers; and
Markets and trades energy-related commodity products, including power and fuel, as well as marketing and trading services to customers.
Markets
A majority of NEER's revenues are derived from sales of energy, capacity, credits and ancillary products under long-term PPAs to customers located in wholesale electricity markets.
NEER operates in all RTO and ISO jurisdictions. As of December 31, 2023, NEER also had generation facilities with a total net generating capacity of approximately 7,944 MW that fall within reliability regions that are not under the jurisdiction of an established RTO or ISO, including 5,743 MW within the Western Electricity Coordinating Council and 2,119 MW within the SERC Reliability Corporation.
NEER Regulation
As of December 31, 2023, essentially all of NEER's generation facilities located in the U.S. have received exempt wholesale generator status as defined under the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 2005.
Additionally, most of the NEER facilities located in the U.S. are subject to FERC regulations and market rules and the NERC's mandatory reliability standards, all of its facilities are subject to environmental laws and the EPA's environmental regulations, and its nuclear facilities are also subject to the jurisdiction of the NRC.
The PUCT has jurisdiction, including the regulation of rates and services, oversight of competitive markets, and enforcement of statutes and rules, over NEER facilities located in Electric Reliability Council of Texas.
History
The company was founded in 1925. It was formerly known as FPL Group, Inc. and changed its name to NextEra Energy, Inc. in 2010.
