CEO: FPL ‘Very Likely’ to Announce First Large-Load Deals This Year
Florida Power & Light Co.’s CEO says the nation’s largest electric utility will “very likely” announce its first large-load deals in 2026 as its parent company, NextEra Energy Inc., embarks on its journey toward the goal of placing into service at least 15 gigawatts of new generation for data centers by 2035.
Speaking to analysts and investors after NextEra reported its fourth-quarter results, Armando Pimentel said the FPL team feels “quite comfortable” that Florida lawmakers’ initiatives around consumer bill protections and company incentives will produce “a very constructive outcome” for the utility and its large-load customers.
“My expectation is […] that in 2026, based on what we are seeing, the interest that we are seeing on the ground here in Florida and particularly in the FPL service territory, that there will be some announcements in 2026,” Pimentel said on a Jan. 27 conference call.
While a handful of other states have jumped far ahead of Florida in terms of data centers, the potential is there for FPL to make that business an important one. At NextEra’s investor day last month, Chairman, President and CEO John Ketchum said FPL teams already had received more than 50 inquiries for large loads from potential users.
On the Jan. 27 call, Ketchum said Florida is a “terrific data-center opportunity for the right partner” because of its growth and infrastructure as well as FPL’s experience. To capitalize on those opportunities, FPL and NextEra more broadly will lean on a bring-your-own-generation strategy that supplies large-load users with an array of renewable and storage assets that are quickly deployed before gas-powered plants are added over time as hyperscalers ramp up their operations.
Alex Kania, a managing director and analyst at BTIG, said that strategy is key advantage for NextEra in the market. The company's NextEra Energy Resources renewables division, he said in a note to clients, “represents one of the very few large-scale solutions to industry concern about supply adequacy during a period of high demand growth.”
The NextEra team is calling their deployment plans data center hubs and say they’re in talks for 20 such campuses around the country and want to double that number by the end of this year. Ketchum said that, even though NextEra’s goal is to add 15 gigawatts of power to the market by 2035 via these projects, he’s aiming for at least 30 gigawatts—including by leaning on capacity at the company’s nuclear sites.
“Our renewables and storage portfolio provides us with a speed-to-market solution to get the initial phase of a data center off the ground and built. Think of it as a hook, so to speak, that’s important for two reasons,” Ketchum said. “First, it means a hyperscaler doesn’t have to wait. Second, it allows us to then grow with our data center customers over time by providing additional capacity through other power generation solutions like new gas-fired generation or SMRs [...] And we’re not just building new infrastructure. We are also working to maximize the value of our existing assets.”
In the last three months of 2025, NextEra produced a net profit of more than $1.5 billion on operating revenues of $6.5 billion. Those numbers were up from $1.2 billion and nearly $5.4 billion, respectively, in late 2024. FPL’s operating income for the quarter climbed more than 20% to $1.5 billion as its revenues climbed 11% to nearly $4.3 billion.
Shares of NextEra (Ticker: NEE) rose about 2% on the heels of executives’ earnings announcement and call and ticked up some more on Jan. 28 to close at 87.57. They have now climbed more than 20% over the past six months, a move that has grown the company’s market capitalization to more than $182 billion.
About the Author
Geert De Lombaerde
Senior Editor
A native of Belgium, Geert De Lombaerde has more than two decades of business journalism experience and writes about markets and economic trends for Endeavor Business Media publications T&D World, Healthcare Innovation, IndustryWeek, FleetOwner and Oil & Gas Journal. With a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, he began his reporting career at the Business Courier in Cincinnati and later was managing editor and editor of the Nashville Business Journal. Most recently, he oversaw the online and print products of the Nashville Post and reported primarily on Middle Tennessee’s finance sector as well as many of its publicly traded companies.