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CTW-2021-34-NextEra Energy

<span style="font-weight: 400">The world’s biggest utility company by market cap has invested some $100 billion in clean energy infrastructure over the past decade, including more than $14 billion in 2020. In Florida, its home state, NextEra has closed its last coal-fired plant; it began work this year on what will be the world’s largest solar-powered battery facility, capable of storing enough energy to run Disney World for seven hours.</span>

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A 100-year-old company that started out as Florida Power &amp; Light, NextEra Energy has grown into one of the largest energy infrastructure development companies in the U.S. NextEra provides a diverse mix of power generation, including natural gas, nuclear, renewable energy, and battery storage. Its legacy FPL subsidiary remains the nation’s largest electric utility with 12 million Florida customers. But the businesses for wind, solar, and batteries have expanded to nearly 45 states and Canada with projects either in operation or under development.

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Q4 2024

NextEra Energy (NEE): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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NextEra Energy

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Good morning and welcome to the NextEra Energy 4th Quarter and Full Year 2024 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen only mode. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Also note, today's event is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the floor over to Mark Bidelman, Director of Investor Relations.

Thank you, Jamie. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our Q4 and full year 2024 financial results conference call for NextEra Energy. With me this morning are John Ketchum, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of NextEra Energy Brian Bolster, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of NextEra Energy Armando Pimentel, President and Chief Executive Officer of Florida Power and Light Company Rebecca Quiava, President and Chief Executive Officer of NextEra Energy Resources and Mark Hickson, Executive Vice President of NextEra Energy. John will start with opening remarks and then Brian will provide an overview of our results. Our executive team will then be available to answer your questions.

We will be making forward looking statements during this call based on current expectations and assumptions, which are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from our forward looking statements if any of our key assumptions are incorrect because of other factors discussed in today's earnings news release and the comments made during this conference call, in the Risk Factors section of the accompanying presentation or in our latest reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, each of which can be found on our website, www.nextairenergy.com. We do not undertake any duty to update any forward looking statements. Today's presentation also includes references to non GAAP financial measures. You should refer to the information contained in the slides accompanying today's presentation for definitional information and reconciliations of historical non GAAP measures to the closest GAAP financial measure.

With that, I'll turn the call over to John.

Thanks, Mark, and good morning, everyone. NextEra Energy had strong operational and financial performance in 2024 delivering full year adjusted earnings per share of $3.43 up over 8% from 2023, once again at the high end of our adjusted EPS expectations range. Since 2021, we have delivered compound annual growth and adjusted EPS of over 10%, which is the highest among all top 10 power companies. In fact, if you looked over the last 5, 10, 15 20 years, you will see the same absolute and relative performance. Our consistent financial outperformance is due first and foremost to the efforts and execution by our team.

I couldn't be more proud of how our team has continued to deliver, and I firmly believe that our track record of execution positions us to lead the build out of energy infrastructure across the country in the coming years. NextEra Energy offers a unique value proposition with 2 strong businesses that we believe are strategically well positioned to meet the growing needs of our customers with outstanding prospects for future growth. FPL is the largest electric utility in the U. S. And Energy Resources is the world's leader in renewables and storage.

Together, we operate the largest natural gas fire generation fleet in the country, are one of the largest nuclear operators in the U. S. And are widely viewed as an industry leader in transmission. We are one of the top 5 infrastructure investors in the United States, and we have invested more than $150,000,000,000 in our nation's energy infrastructure over the last decade, building everything from nuclear upgrades, natural gas pipelines and natural gas fired generation to battery storage and renewables. Over the next 4 years alone, we plan to invest roughly $120,000,000,000 across the country, which would allow us to grow our combined fleet to roughly 121 Gigawatts.

FPL and Energy Resources individually have executed well, delivering value for our customers and shareholders. We have one of the sector's strongest balance sheets and between the two companies, we placed into service approximately 8.7 gigawatts of new renewables and storage projects in 2024. Let me start by giving you an update on each of our businesses and then provide you with some comments on the state of our industry. FPL continues to deliver what we believe is the best customer value proposition in one of the fastest growing states in the U. S.

As we approach our 100 year anniversary at FPL, our vision remains the same, to continue making smart capital investments for the benefit of our customers, be an industry leader on costs and deliver high reliability and outstanding customer service, while keeping bills as low as possible for our customers. In 2024, we continue to see the fruits of that smart capital spend. For nearly 2 decades, FPL has invested in building a stronger, smarter and more storm resilient grid. The performance of our system demonstrates that FPL's hardening, undergrounding, automation and smart grid investments are providing significant benefits to our customers. Our investments in smart grid technology enabled us to avoid more than 2,700,000 outages in 2024, and those investments paid off as our team responded exceptionally well in response to hurricanes Debbie, Helane and Milton.

We are able to deliver this performance and keep our bills 40% below the national average because of our focus on capital and operating efficiency and innovation. FPL continued to make smart capital investments in low cost solar generation and battery storage, further reducing our overall fuel cost. During the year, we placed into service more than 2.2 gigawatts of new cost effective solar, and we expect to add more than 15 gigawatts by 2,033. When combined with generation modernizations, these additions have saved customers more than $16,000,000,000 since 2,001. We also continue to focus on running the business more efficiently.

In 2024, we improved upon our best in class non fuel O and M cost per customer, which was already 70% better than the industry's national average, saving customers over $3,000,000,000 per year versus an average performing utility. Innovation has been one of the keys to our operating efficiency. FPL is the only utility in the nation to remotely operate its fossil fleet. Our fleet control center is one of the world's largest monitoring and diagnostic centers and the 1st in the industry to remotely operate a more than 20 gigawatt natural gas combined cycle fleet from a single location, providing real time troubleshooting with engineering, maintenance and operation support and delivering world class predictive analytics and diagnostics. This is just one example of the innovative efforts by FPL to reduce costs for our customers, while continuing to provide exceptional service.

Late last year, FPL filed a test year letter with the Florida Public Service Commission to initiate a rate proceeding for new rates beginning in January 2026. The stability of multi year rate plans has allowed FPL to focus on efficiency in the business, which is critical to keeping customer bills as low as possible and has enabled FPL to maintain a strong balance sheet, which allows for consistent access to the capital markets. We look forward to the opportunity to showcase our long term track record of providing low bills and high reliability for Floridians and our plans to build an even more resilient energy future for Florida. We believe FPL is strategically well positioned as Florida remains one of the fastest growing states in the U. S.

With a population growth rate that is expected to grow 60% more than the national average by 2,030. We plan to meet Florida's long term growth outlook with investments in generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure, which we believe will further enhance our best in class customer value proposition. Energy Resources had another record year of new renewables and storage origination, adding more than 12 gigawatts to our backlog, which includes approximately 3.3 gigawatts since our last call, a sign of the momentum of demand for new generation in renewables and storage in particular. These additions to our backlog increased 30% from the 9 gigawatts we originated in 2023, our 2nd best year ever. To put that into context, 12 gigawatts is the size of a large utility in the U.

S. Energy Resources also had a record year in solar origination and a a record year in battery storage origination, again demonstrating the strong demand for renewables and storage because they are low cost and can be deployed now. Focusing for a moment on battery storage, we have deployed more than 3.4 gigawatts in total and currently have more than 7.2 gigawatts in our backlog. Our extensive portfolio of existing operating sites, which have excess transmission capacity and are nearly 30 gigawatts of standalone storage interconnection queue positions means we can dramatically speed up our deployments, a distinct competitive advantage that no one else in this industry has. We also continue to be a leader in serving data center customers with our total renewables portfolio, including assets in operation and in backlog at 8.3 gigawatts.

However, one point that I believe is being overlooked is that power demand is everywhere across all sectors and increasingly across utilities, municipalities and electric cooperatives as our 12 gigawatt year of backlog additions reflects. And as demand for power increases across all customer classes as we advance our domestic economic agenda, so does the potential price of power unless we bring new generation online quickly to meet that demand. Customers of all types are looking for low cost ways to meet their growing power needs while reducing their exposure to higher power prices over time. Given the current power demand environment, it is more important than ever to unleash all forms of electric generation, starting with renewables, which are ready now as I will discuss more in a minute. There is no better example of this than our own portfolio.

We have originated more than 3 gigawatts in 3 of the last 5 quarters and assuming we achieve the midpoint of our development expectations range, Energy Resources will be operating a roughly 75 gigawatt renewables portfolio by the end of 2027, which would be larger than the installed renewables capacity of all but 7 countries. In 2024, we continue to demonstrate our leadership as a supplier of choice for buyers of new generation. We announced 2 framework agreements with 2 Fortune 50 companies that have the potential to develop renewables and storage projects, totaling up to 10.5 gigawatts between now and 2,030, as well as a joint development agreement with Entergy. When combined, our announced framework agreements total up to a potential 15 gigawatts, demonstrating our unique position in the market and our customers' confidence in our ability to help meet the nation's need for power. And we are not sitting still as we think about our value proposition for our customers.

We are constantly looking to make sure we have the most comprehensive solution set. That is why today we are pleased to announce a framework agreement with GE Vernova, where we will partner to build natural gas power generation solutions. This agreement has the potential to support multiple gigawatts for data centers, the reshoring of manufacturing and the electrification of industry, as well as serve investor owned utilities, municipalities, cooperatives and commercial and industrial customers. Nobody has built more gas fired generation over the last decade than NextEra Energy and nobody has sold more gas turbines than GE Vernova. This collaboration brings together the nation's leading operator of natural gas fired generation and NextEra Energy and the world's leader in natural gas and electrification technology and GE Vernova to jointly develop opportunities that we believe will enable significantly more renewables to meet growing power demand by pairing low cost renewables for energy with gas fired generation for capacity.

Over the next 4 years, the company's plan to collaborate to identify key locations on the energy grid that would benefit from new generation. GE Vernova will incorporate its world class natural gas generation technologies and critical electric electrification solutions, while leveraging its financial service capabilities. NextEra Energy expects to provide customers with integrated renewable, storage and gas fired solutions for large loads, something we can uniquely deliver with our scale, experience, technology and unmatched development skills. This framework agreement is just another example of why we believe Energy Resources has the most comprehensive power generation business in the world and is better positioned than ever to capitalize on long term growth prospects. Before I turn it over to Brian, I want to take a moment to make some comments regarding the industry as we look to the years ahead.

The need to add to the country's power infrastructure is no longer in doubt. Our industry's mandate is to deliver new generation and capacity solutions at the lowest cost possible in order for the U. S. To achieve the new administration's energy dominance agenda. As a leading American energy producer, this is an agenda that we support and believe we are well positioned to deliver on.

At NextEra Energy, we know all forms of energy will be required to meet that mandate. If we don't build new generation to keep up with increasing demand for electricity, power prices are going to go up or perhaps worse, new technology or manufacturing load won't be able to connect to the grid, which would slow economic growth and we could miss opportunities to further our leadership in AI. Renewables and storage are ready now to meet that demand and will help lower power prices. Gas fire generation is moving forward, but won't be available at scale until 2,030 and then only in certain pockets of the U. S.

In addition, gas fired generation is more expensive than it's been, with costs having more than doubled over the last 5 years due to the limited supply of gas turbines, a constrained supply chain and much higher EPC costs. Nuclear continues to be a much longer term option in our opinion due to first of a kind risks and uncertainty with near term opportunities centered on recommissioning and upgrade projects. Nuclear plants across the country are already serving existing demand and there are only a few nuclear plants that could be recommissioned in the near term in an economic way. We are continuing to make progress in evaluating of our Duane Arnold nuclear plant in Iowa. Recently, we filed notice with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to request a licensing change, an important first step in establishing the regulatory pathway to restore the facility's operating license and potentially restart plant operations as early as the end of 2028.

While this is just one part of our broader efforts with regulators, government officials, potential customers and other stakeholders, we are encouraged by the positive responses we have received so far from all parties involved. We also continue to evaluate alternatives such as SMRs. However, due to the risks and uncertainty, the practical reality is we are unlikely to add multiple gigawatts of new nuclear to the grid over the next decade. That means we need renewables and storage to meet demand that is here today. And as we move towards the next decade, we can supplement renewables and storage with natural gas fired generation and to a more limited extent nuclear given the time it will take to develop and build.

We know this because we have experience across the entire energy value chain. Our mission is to provide our customers with the lowest cost, most reliable energy, no matter where they are located. We've been doing it for decades in Florida and across the country and are positioned to keep doing it for years to come. Our scale and experience tells us that all forms of power generation and capacity will be needed as the U. S.

Tries to keep up with demand. And that same scale and experience also tells us that renewables and storage should continue to be a critical source of new energy and capacity across the country because they are lowest cost and can be deployed now. With that, let me turn it over to Brian, who will review the 2024 results in more detail.

Thanks, John. Let's begin with FPL's detailed results. For the full year 2024, FPL's adjusted earnings per share increased $0.12 versus 2023. The principal driver of FPL's 2024 full year performance was regulatory capital employed growth of approximately 10%. We continue to expect FPL's average annual growth in regulatory capital employed to be roughly 10% over the 4 year term of our current rate agreement, which runs through 2025.

For the full year 2024, FPL's reported ROE for regulatory purposes will be approximately 11.4%. During the full year 20 24, we used $328,000,000 of reserve amortization, leaving FPL with a year end 2024 balance of $895,000,000 FPL's capital expenditures were approximately $1,800,000,000 in the 4th quarter, bringing its full year capital investments to a total of roughly $8,200,000,000 Key indicators show that the Florida economy remains strong and Florida's population continues to be one of the fastest growing in the country. Its GDP is now roughly $1,700,000,000,000 an increase of approximately 7% over last year. For the Q4 of 2024, FPL's retail sales increased 1.1% from the prior year on a weather normalized basis, driven primarily by continued strong customer growth. In the Q4 of 2024, we added nearly 119,000 customers as compared to the prior year comparable quarter, bringing our total customer accounts to over 6,000,000.

For the full year 2024, FPL's retail sales increased 1.9% from the prior year on a weather normalized basis, also driven primarily by the strong customer growth in our service territory. As John mentioned, FPL is preparing to file a base rate case proposal that would cover the 4 years beginning 2026 through 2029 and provide customers longer term visibility to the cost of electricity. As a reminder, for the period 2022 through the end of 2025, FPL plans to invest approximately $36,000,000,000 with additional significant investments expected in 2026 and beyond to continue to meet the growing needs of Florida's economy. This capital will allow FPL to continue delivering outstanding value for Florida customers by keeping reliability high and fuel and other costs as low as possible. While the benefit of building a stronger, smarter grid and a cleaner, more efficient generation fleet are passed along regularly to customers through higher service reliability and lower bills, we must periodically seek recovery for these long term investments through base rates.

While the details are still being finalized, we expect the proposal to include base rate adjustments of approximately $1,550,000,000 starting in January of 2026 $930,000,000 starting in January of 2027. We also expect the proposal to request support for continued deployment of low cost generation and capacity additions and the continuation of our solar and battery base rate adjustment or sober mechanism to recover the revenue requirements of these cost effective projects. FPL plans to propose an ROE midpoint at 11.9% with an allowed ROE band of +1%. The 11.9% estimated cost of equity reflects appreciably higher interest rates and other capital markets factors we have experienced since our last rate case and which we expect to continue during the term of the proposed 4 year rate plan. FPL also expects to propose maintaining FPL's long standing equity ratio approved in prior base rate cases, which is intended to keep it in a position to continue to access capital as needed through 2029.

We continue to believe that a strong balance sheet, which starts with an appropriate equity layer and which supports strong credit ratings, remains critical to ensure FPL maintains uninterrupted access to the capital markets even in times of significant market disruption. It also allows us to attract capital to support the investments FPL is making to further improve the value we offer customers. FPL estimates that its proposal along with the projections for fuel and other costs, will grow a typical residential customer bill by an average annual rate of approximately 2.5% from January 2025 through 2029. If the full amount of the requests were granted under our proposal and assuming other utilities experience bill increases only at their historical rates of increase, we expect FPL's typical customer bills will continue to remain significantly lower than the national average through 20 29. To put this proposal in context, it would result in a typical customer bill in January 2026 that is nearly 21% less than it was in real terms 20 years ago, even with our proposed base rate increases.

We look forward to the opportunity to present the details of our case and expect to make our formal filing with testimony and required detailed data in February. The timeline for proceeding will ultimately be determined by the commission, but we currently expect that we will have hearings in the 3rd quarter and a final commission decision in the 4th quarter in time for new rates to go into effect in January of 2026. We're open to the possibility of resolving our rate request through a fair settlement agreement. During the course of the past 22 years, FBL has entered into 5 multi year settlement agreements that have provided customers with a high degree of rate stability and certainty and helped FPL execute to deliver its best in class customer value proposition. Our core focus will be to pursue a fair and objective review of our case that supports continued execution of our successful strategy for customers and we plan to continue to provide updates throughout the process.

Now let's turn to Energy Resources, which reported full year adjusted earnings growth of more than 13% year over year. For the full year, contributions from new investments increased by $0.48 per share, reflecting continued growth of demand for our renewables and storage portfolio. Contributions from existing clean energy assets increased by $0.03 per share, primarily reflecting improved wind resource during the year and the impact of certain revenue and PTC escalation benefits inherent in our existing assets. Contributions from our gas infrastructure business decreased by $0.08 per share, most of which was recognized in the Q2. As we discussed at the time, a combination of higher depletion expense related to an expectation for lower production, certain non recurring items and the sale of the Texas pipeline portfolio resulted in lower relative earnings in that quarter.

Contributions since that time have been effectively flat, consistent with the expectations we provided in the Q2. Our customer supply and trading business, which you'll recall had a strong earnings in 2023, decreased results by $0.04 per share, driven by normalization of origination activity and margins, which is consistent with our expectations. Other impacts decreased results by $0.24 per share year over year. This decline reflects higher interest costs of $0.13 per share, nearly half of which is new borrowing to support our build and a half of which reflects increased borrowing cost on existing debt. Energy Resources again for the 3rd year in a row delivered our best year ever for origination, adding more than 12 gigawatts of new renewables and battery storage projects to our backlog, which includes approximately 3.3 gigawatts since our last call.

Our 2024 origination performance reflects continued strong demand from power and commercial and industrial customers looking for the least cost alternative to serve load and meet increasing demand. Our renewables backlog now stands at more than 25 gigawatts after taking into account roughly 2.4 gigawatts of new projects placed into service since our Q3 call. We believe our more than 25 gigawatt backlog provides terrific visibility into Energy Resources' ability to deliver attractive growth in years ahead. Turning now to the consolidated results for NextEra Energy. For the full year, adjusted earnings per share from our Corporate and Other segment decreased by $0.01 per share year over year.

We successfully supported the growth in our underlying businesses from our strong operating cash flows and grew 2024 cash flow from operations by more than 17%, well in excess of adjusted earnings. We also continue to focus on protecting our project economics at Energy Resources, as well as minimizing the cost of refinancing at the parent. We now have $28,500,000,000 of interest rate hedges in place. To put this all in perspective, NextEra Energy's sensitivity for an immediate 50 basis point upward shift in the yield curve has on average $0.01 to 0 point 0 $3 of expected adjusted EPS impact in 2025, 2026, 2027, which is equivalent to less than 1% of our adjusted EPS expectations. The sensitivity, of course, assumes we do not implement other offsetting initiatives, including, among others, our normal process of cost reductions and capital efficiency opportunities.

As a reminder, the current interest rate environment is taken into account in our financial expectations. Overall, our funding plans for 2024 through 2027 remain consistent with the information we shared previously. For each of the last 15 years, NextEra Energy has met or exceeded its financial expectations, which is a record we're proud of. And once again, our long term financial expectations remain unchanged. We will be disappointed if we're not able to deliver financial results at or near the top end of our adjusted EPS expectation ranges in 2025, 20262027.

From 2023 to 2027, we continue to expect that our average annual growth in operating cash flow will be at or above our adjusted EPS compound annual growth rate range. And we will also continue to expect to grow our dividends per share at roughly 10% per year through at least 20.26 off a 20.24 base. As always, our expectations assume our caveats. That concludes our prepared remarks. And with that, we will open the line for questions.

Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will open the line for questions. Our first question today comes from Steve Fleishman from Wolfe Research. Please go ahead with your question.

Yes. Hi, good morning. Thanks. Just a couple of high level questions. So on the GEV framework agreement announcement, could you maybe give a little more color on would you co own projects with them?

And also just would you only be doing contracted projects, long term contracts or would you consider doing kind of new build merchant like an ERCOT or PJM? Thanks on that.

Steve, thanks for the question. First of all, we're very excited about this framework agreement with GU Vernova. Again, as I said in the prepared remarks, nobody has built more gas fired generation in this country, really not only over the last decade, the last 2 decades than NextEra. So we've got significant experience. We have an 80 year relationship with GE, just terrific relationship, not only on the renewable side, but also on the gas fire generation side with all that full debt that we have historically done.

So I think you're bringing 2 powerhouses together with experience in gas fired generation. The idea would be to go after and target large load customers and do it in an integrated way where we can combine gas fired generation with renewable battery storage solutions. And each party would bring the expertise that you would expect to the table. In terms of the ownership, yes, they would be co owned as part of a fifty-fifty joint venture. These would be long term contracted assets as well.

We could contemplate in the right situation with the right customer also potentially a build down transfer on gas fired generation as well if it was part of a larger transaction that included renewables and other growth opportunities. But we're very excited about this. I think it enables us to bring a comprehensive solution set that is right down our alley.

Yes. No, it makes a lot of sense. I assume it gets you access to turbines kind of relatively quickly as well. Just one other question on, I think we call it the elephant in the room, the new administration and just the kind of, I guess, the announcement on the wind limits on wind leases on federal lands and then also views on kind of where things stand on IRA risk, would love any commentary on those topics? Thanks.

Sure, Steve. Let me go ahead and take that. First of all, with the executive orders as a whole, very consistent with our beliefs that we need electrons. We need electrons right now. And we need to unleash the American energy industry and achieve energy dominance.

So we embrace the new administration's mandates that have come out in these executive orders. And as part of achieving energy dominance, we're going to need all of the above solutions. We can't afford to take any options off the table. We're going to need gas. We're going to need nuclear.

We're going to need renewables. We're going to need storage as well. But we can't wait, because that demand is here today. I mean, if you think about it, power demand is higher than it's ever been in this country. The only close analogy you could draw us to the last industrial revolution.

And we're expecting low demand to increase over 80% over the next 5 years, sixfold over the next 20 years. And if you think about generation types and needing all of the above, they're not all created equally in terms of timing, which is one of the things that I hit in my prepared remarks. Renewables are here today. You can build a wind project in 12 months, a storage facility in 15 and a solar project in 18 months. With gas fired generation, we're pleased with our announcement with GE Vernova.

With gas fired generation, the country is starting from a standing start. And we've got to go find the sites, we've got to develop these sites, we've got to get gas to those sites. We've got to get hands on gas turbines. If you take all those things together and you think about when is gas really going to be able to contribute at scale, I mean, we're looking at 2,030, and nuclear later than that. And we need shovels in the ground today, because our customers need the power right now.

I mean, if you think about it from a customer standpoint, they have already built new manufacturing facilities that are well down the road that are going to need electrons. Our utility customers have already shut down existing generation. They're counting on these renewable projects, some of which include wind, to show up to be able to provide the electrons. So we don't have reliability issues with their customers, because right now we are short power in this country. And so when I think about wind and I think about our own portfolio, we don't have any offshore wind, as you all know.

We've never been in the offshore wind business. And we all of our onshore projects are on private land except for 1. And that's a very positive fact. And the permitting process is rather limited for onshore private land solutions. And I go back to our customers need the power right now.

They're building new manufacturing, utilities have already planned for it. And I know this administration, they support low cost energy, they support domestic job creation. So I remain very optimistic that we're going to be able to work through any issues that may come up along the way and feel good about the future of our program.

And Steve, on Ira, let me hit your last one on Ira. Okay. That's really a lot of the same points. I mean, obviously, we've been spending a lot of time in Washington on advocacy around Ira. And what I will say there is, again, it's all about electrons and needing electrons right now.

The power demand is here today. We need to serve it. Renewables play a very important role in all forms of energy solution. We're going to need gas to back up renewables. We'll have nuclear later next decade.

But right now, if we need we need solutions that are going to deliver electrons to the grid, so we don't have a power crisis. And that is the thing that is not being overlooked at all by folks that we are meeting with in Congress. And then there's the other factor that, look, this is a terrific American industry. We are creating a substantial number of jobs right here in our backyard and 80% of those jobs are and investments are incurring in Republican states. Take our own CapEx.

We've been top 5 infrastructure investor over the last 5 years, fully expect that to be the case over the next 4 years. NextEra is going to invest $120,000,000,000 over the next 4 years. That's our expectation. And again, 80% of those dollars is going into Republican stages, a lot of manufacturing, a lot of job creation, a lot of property taxes, a lot of economic benefits. So those are the messages that we're trying to make sure we get across in Washington around the IRA discussion.

Our next question comes from Shar Pourreza from Guggenheim Partners. Please go ahead with your question.

Good morning. Just real quick, John, I know you noted the time to market for nuclear is between the 20 7, 30 timeframe. I guess, where does Duane Arnold fall within that timeframe? And also, there's obviously one restart out there and there's a cost estimate. Is there anything you can provide just directionally for Duane Arnold restart versus the comp that's out there?

And would you potentially look to expand the site of their support from a counterparty or the federal government? Thanks.

Yes. Hey, thanks, Shar, for the question. So happy to say that we have made our filing with the NRC around the licensing to recommission that assured that we assured that we are in active discussions with customers today. There's a lot of interest in the plant as we look forward. But my comments around nuclear are really, look, as one of the largest nuclear operators in the country, we know a lot about it.

I think the near term opportunities are around the recommissioning with Palisades, of Crane, of Duane Arnold as well. And those are really the ones that I think I would confine to the timeframe of being over the next 3, 4, 5 years. As you think about next decade, my comments around next decade, those are really more around the small modular reactors, which are still a first of a kind technology, have some uncertainty in terms of developing and permitting and the ability of them to be able to deliver be delivered to market on time and on schedule. And so as we think about small modular reactors and we have a team internally at NextEra Energy that is focusing on nothing but small modular reactors. We'd love to be able to develop them, but as we get into them, there are some practical limitations.

So if we're thinking as a country about their ability to contribute to all the power demand that we see that's here right now, my only comment is that I would think about them more as a next decade solution, probably middle of the latter part of the next decade if we're thinking about small modular reactors at scale and cost continues to remain a wildcard.

Got it. Maybe just I'll just ask it a slightly different way. Just what's the condition of the plant right now, I guess, on Duane Arnold?

The Duane Arnold plant is really in good shape. I mean, the only issue that we had if I think about the facility and the condition that it's in, I mean, I think about the reactor itself and very good condition. The only damage that we ever sustained at Duane Arliss at Doritio that took down the cooling tower, but building a cooling tower is run of the mill. I mean, you build them at gas plants, you build them at nuclear facilities as well. So that's pretty conventional construction, so not a whole lot of risk there.

And then just lastly on just to follow-up on Steve's gas question there, 2,030 plus just to me seems a little far out just given the hyperscalers needs, including just the trends around additionality and speed to market. I think supply chain should start to ease in the next couple of years. I guess just directionally, this could be pretty, I guess, a sizable opportunity for NextEra. I guess, when can this sort of start to become accretive to growth and hit the backlog? Thanks.

Yes. Hey, thanks, Shar, for the question. So my comments on gas are, when you look at finding a site, getting it permitted, getting gas to the facility, getting it interconnected and then the equipment limitations of actually getting a turbine slot, getting access to that turbine And then the EPC labor, remember, we this is an industry that really hasn't seen any active development or construction in years. And so that's my comment earlier about really beginning from a standing start. And so all of that puts pressure on cost.

I mean, we've seen enormous demand, as you know, from GE Vernova's commentary for gas turbines. And it's not only domestic, it's international. And that's more than double the cost of a gas turbine. And EPC labor is in such short supply that the costs there have tripled. And I look back to just our last gas fired facility that we built here in Florida, Dania Beach.

If we take the cost we paid for that facility on a dollar per kw basis to today, I mean, the cost has tripled in price. And so those are some of the sensitivities. So it's not only time, but it's money as well and making sure that we can put an economic solution in front of the customer. In terms of when it contributes, consistent with that timeframe, I mean, I think it's the that 2030 beyond timeframe. And don't get me wrong, there are probably some pockets of the country that would be an exception.

ERCOT, you can build more quickly than you can in other parts of the country. Other parts of the country are just more difficult, right, because you have to deal with courts. We know from our own experience with what it took to get the MVP pipeline built in the Mid Atlantic region. If you think about PJM in particular, it's just not easy to get the gas to those facilities and to get gas infrastructure built. This new administration certainly is undoubtedly going to move forward with reforms that will make that easier to achieve, but there could be litigation over those things as well.

So as we put all the pieces together, we're just being practical, we're just being realistic. We see it more as a later this decade solution.

Fantastic. Thanks again, John. Send my best to the team. Appreciate it.

Our next question comes from Julien Dumoulin Smith from Jefferies.

Hey, good morning team. Thank you guys very much. Appreciate it. Hey, so maybe to follow-up a little bit on some of the core questions here. How do you think about getting into this gas business?

I know you talk about development kind of in the 2030 plus. Any thoughts about strategically entering into it in a proactive way from an acquisition perspective to create some origination prospects, right, to leverage off of? And then related, how are you thinking about this Explore pivot and having sort of a development sell down partner? I know, for instance, your comment earlier about a fifty-fifty development effort with GVs and their financial services effort. How do you think about the renewable side of that monetization sector?

Yes, let me take those in pieces. So if I think about the gas business and your question about whether or not we would look to do something through acquisition, I don't think we need to do that. And here's why we don't need to do that, Julian, is we are a giant development company, right? That is our business. We are a massive development company that's been up and running for the better part of a couple of decades.

We have all the pieces in place already. We have a land team. We have a permitting team. We have gas infrastructure capability to build gas pipeline laterals, to build new gas pipelines. We have a transmission business.

There wouldn't be a whole lot to be gained for us adding a piece through an acquisition. Given that we already have all those components in place internally, it's an easy pivot for us to move into gas. And we've already been up and running in that and already have put together a nice pipeline and we'll continue to grow that as we move forward. On the XPLR side, I really don't want to answer any questions about XPLR on this call given that we have a call scheduled for Tuesday, but I will answer your question about sell down vehicles and recycling capital generically for NextEra Energy. I think as you can see with our reaffirmation of our capital recycling plan and our equity plan that we've included in today's call, there are no changes, right?

No changes at all. And so we feel good about where we are in terms of our ability to recycle capital and has no impact again on our equity needs. And we have plenty of outlets available to be able to do that, whether that would be through XPLR or some other avenue as we've talked about in the past.

Julian, I'd just remind you that over the past 18 months, 24 months, we recycled several $1,000,000,000 of capital that had nothing to do with Explore. So again, not only are we very comfortable with our expectations, we've been recycling capital now for a good several years through other avenues.

Yes. All right, indeed. All right. Well, best of luck here. Appreciate it.

Our next question comes from Nick Campanella from Barclays. Please go ahead with your question.

Hey, good morning. Thanks for all the updates. So, hey, just a 2% change to customers for FPL in this upcoming rate case definitely stands out in a positive way. Just wanted to see if you had any updated thoughts on how you're thinking about the surplus reserve mechanism? And then also just how are you kind of thinking about earned ROEs at FP and L in 2025?

Great. Thank you. So we are the growth that we saw this last quarter, the growth that we saw in the year was certainly positive. But it's not just this past year, we've been seeing it really since the pandemic. Our expectations going into the next rate case over the next 4 years is that growth may come down a little bit over the next 4 years because of what we saw during the pandemic.

But we still believe it's going to be fairly strong growth in our service territory. And that's why our expectations for the 'twenty six, 'twenty nine time period for capital investing in the business would be above the roughly $36,000,000,000 that we are going to put in over the 4 year settlement agreement that ends at the end of 'twenty five. So a lot of that detail will come out here in the next, it's probably about 6 weeks now because we expect to file our rate case at the end of February. Your question regarding the reserve mechanism, we're sitting at roughly $800,000,000 after using $400,000,000 or so in 2024. So we feel good.

We're certainly not going into 2025 believing that all the risks that we use is through the surplus mechanism are behind us. We've had to tap that reserve mechanism for a lot of inflation, higher interest rates, a lot more growth in our area and therefore a lot more CapEx expenses that we expected. So with the 11.4% ROE at the end of 2024, I expect there might be a little bit of upside to that 11.4% in 2025, but it's obviously early. We want to make sure that we get through this year in good shape. And we feel really positive about the case that we are going to present to our regulators in February because we've been doing the right things for our customers.

So as long as we do that, I think we'll be okay.

Hey, thanks for all that information. And then I'm sorry, but just a follow-up on XPLR, just you're still including the proportional share of EBITDA and earnings in your own outlook from a knee perspective. And I just wanted to confirm that you just continue to see that income stream consistent and preserved kind of regardless of the outcome? Thanks.

Just say that the accounting is unchanged around Explore and we'll discuss the outlook for that business on Tuesday.

NextEra Energy (NEE) Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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