NextEra Energy Inc.’s renewable energy team booked record sales for future projects in the three months ended Sept. 30, executives told investors Oct. 24.
The sales and development teams at NextEra Energy Resources added more than 3.2 gigawatts of renewables and storage projects during the quarter, the first team they topped the 3-gigawatt mark. NextEra Energy Resources President and CEO Rebecca Kujawa said that number—45% of it coming from solar, 28% from storage, 14% from wind repowering and 12% from wind projects—included the first installations scheduled for delivery in 2027 and grew her group’s total backlog past 21 gigawatts.
Speaking to analysts on a conference call following NextEra’s Q3 earnings report, Kujawa said her team is increasingly able to market NextEra’s size to customers and prospects looking for greater assurance in planning out their renewables commitments “after some weariness over the last couple of years” with supply chain woes and rising project costs.
“We’re starting to see adoption across a broader set of markets—not just California, but into the Midwest, where our utility customers and obviously some [commercial and industrial customers] are really valuing the ability to incorporate storage for capacity value,” Kujawa said.
Of the contracts booked for this year through 2026, customers in the Midwest now account for 6.3 gigawatts of wind, solar and storage projects. That’s only slightly less than clients in NextEra’s West region.
An added bonus for NextEra Energy Resource versus the last few years: NextEra President and CEO Jon Ketchum said the company’s supply chain has “really improved a lot,” especially when it comes to solar panels being shipped from Southeast Asia. NextEra, Ketchum added, also has been able to stock up on transformers and other grid equipment.
NextEra, which also is the parent company Florida Power & Light, posted a third-quarter net profit of $1.2 billion on operating revenues of nearly $7.2 billion. The bottom-line was down from about $1.7 billion in the same period of 2022 due to NextEra Energy Resources needing to book a roughly $950 million impairment charge on its investment in NextEra Energy Partners, a deconsolidated affiliate that manages and own contracted clean energy projects. On an operating level, income was essentially flat at a little more than $1.8 billion.
FPL’s operations generated Q3 net income of nearly $1.2 billion, up 10% from the prior year’s quarter. That performance was helped by retail sales growth of 3.0%, with customer growth and mix changes accounting for more than a third of that number.
Shares of NextEra (Ticker: NEE) popped 7% to $55.12 on the earnings report and conference call details. They are, however, still down 30% over the past six months, in large part because of a restructuring of NextEra Energy Partners. That slide that has cut the company’s market capitalization to about $112 billion.
