NextEra Energy agreed to buy Dominion Energy in a roughly $67 billion deal that would create the largest power company in the U.S., underscoring the energy industry’s pursuit of scale and capital to meet growing electricity demand from U.S. tech companies.
The deal, which is subject to state and federal regulatory approvals, would create a power behemoth on par with the world’s largest oil companies. The combined company would have an estimated market capitalization of $250 billion, making it the third-largest U.S. energy company behind Exxon Mobil and Chevron.
In purchasing Richmond, Virginia-based Dominion, NextEra is acquiring a utility at the heart of America’s data center boom. Virginia is home to the world’s largest collection of energy-hungry data centers for cloud computing and artificial intelligence. Dominion’s steadily added more tech industry customers in recent quarters.
NextEra, based in Juno Beach, Florida, already ranked as the largest power company in the U.S. by market capitalization. It is the country’s largest renewable energy developer and operates one of the country’s largest utilities in Florida Power & Light. The new company would rank as the nation’s largest gas plant operator and the largest operator of utility-scale battery storage.
The NextEra-Dominion tie-up would create the second-largest nuclear power plant operator.
“I can’t stress enough that this is the defining moment,” said NextEra CEO John Ketchum. “The country needs more energy infrastructure built faster, more efficiently, and more affordably than ever before. Combining two great American companies can better achieve the speed and scale this moment demands.”
As energy demand from data centers has ballooned, NextEra has positioned itself to be technology companies’ power supplier of choice. In January of 2025, NextEra announced a partnership with the gas turbine maker GE Vernova to develop power plants serving data centers. The company was also selected by the White House in March to develop 10 gigawatts of natural gas capacity in Pennsylvania and Texas as part of trade deal with Japan.
NextEra has pursued a diversified development strategy during the second Trump administration, arguing renewables and batteries are best positioned to meet data centers’ power needs in the short term while new gas facilities are built and brought online to meet the technology industry’s needs.
Dominion operates as a regulated monopoly inside of PJM Interconnection’s footprint as the mid-Atlantic’s regional grid operator. That gives NextEra an opportunity to secure guaranteed returns in the largest wholesale power market in the U.S. Dominion has contracts for 51 GW of data-center capacity, which are in varying stages of development. Its data center pipeline grew 5 percent in the first quarter of the year.
The deal “is the clearest possible confirmation that the AI-driven power demand supercycle is not a cyclical trade but a decades-long infrastructure build,” Wedbush power sector analysts said in a note to clients Monday.
Demand at scale
The need for power is particularly acute in PJM, which runs from the Washington area west to Chicago. Electricity prices soared almost 76 percent in the first quarter of the year compared to the first three months of 2025, as the system strained to keep up with electricity demand from data centers. PJM’s demand is expected to grow 3.6 percent annually over the next decade.
Analysts said Monday’s deal represents an attempt to keep pace, bringing one of the largest power developers in NextEra into states like Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, where it had a limited presence.
“This a response to a structural inflection in American power demand that neither company could fully address alone,” Melius Research said in a note to clients. “NEE is structuring itself to be the only company with the balance sheet, supply chain, and operating platform to meet that demand at scale.”
The purchase of Dominion means NextEra would acquire Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, one of the largest renewable energy projects ever built in the United States. Construction of the $11.4 billion project, which will generate enough power to supply 660,000 homes, was briefly halted last year by the Trump administration. Dominion sued, construction resumed and a first turbine generated power earlier this year. It is expected to reach commercial operation next year.
Asked by financial analysts how they became comfortable with the project, NextEra executives said they were encouraged by Dominion’s progress. They noted 14 turbines are complete and that Dominion reduced its price tag during the last quarter.
“We feel like that project is online, and given the investment that’s been made there, it’s the right thing to do to finish it,” Ketchum said.
To complete the merger, companies need to clear a series of regulatory hurdles. The transaction needs to be approved by state utility regulators in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia, as well as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
This isn’t the first time NextEra has attempted to purchase a major utility. In 2020, it attempted to purchase Duke Energy, but was rebuffed by the North Carolina-based utility giant.
NextEra executives expressed optimism they could close the deal with Dominion, estimating it would take 12-18 months to secure the needed regulatory approvals. They noted the two companies have little operational overlap and pointed to $2.25 billion in proposed bill credits to utility customers in Virginia, South Carolina and North Carolina.
“I think we have really tried to thoughtfully structure this transaction. We put customers first,” Ketchum said.
James West, an analyst at Melius, said he did not expect any significant hurdles at the federal level.
“With this administration so focused on winning the AI war, they’re going to do whatever it takes to try to help companies respond to the demand for gigawatts,” he said.
The politics could be more complicated at the state level. Virginia regulators are already coming under pressure to heavily scrutinize the deal.
Advocates are pointing to NextEra’s recent $7 billion rate increase in Florida, which opponents have called the largest rate hike in U.S. history.
Energy affordability questions
Critics of the deal also point to the history of political scandals from NextEra subsidiary Florida Power & Light — including its support of “ghost candidates” to help unseat pro-renewable state lawmakers and surveillance of critical journalists. FPL’s then-CEO Eric Silagy resigned in 2023 following those revelations.
“Before Virginia ratepayers are locked into a relationship with NextEra Energy, every policymaker and regulator in the Commonwealth needs to understand what NextEra has done in Florida and ask hard questions about whether Virginians can expect anything different,” said Brennan Gilmore, executive director of Clean Virginia, an advocacy group that opposes utility influence in policymaking.
Gilmore also questioned one of the deal’s political sweeteners: $2.25 billion in bill credits spread over two years for Dominion’s customers in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina.
He contrasted that temporary benefit against the companies’ expectation that the deal will support 11 percent in annual rate base growth through 2032. Gilmore said that kind of growth, which adds to utility profits, can drive higher long-term costs for ratepayers.
“One-time credits are a down payment on political goodwill, not a guarantee of affordability,” Gilmore said in a statement. “The question Virginians need answered is simple: What would NextEra charge us to earn its profit, and for how long? That number, return on equity, is absent from everything they’ve said today. Virginians should be extremely skeptical given NextEra’s long history of increasing prices to customers.”
The deal will require approval from Virginia’s State Corporation Commission. Democratic Attorney General Jay Jones, who could intervene in that process, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who also could influence the deal’s fate, also did not respond to a request for comment.
Dominion has enough political baggage in Virginia that the commonwealth could emerge as the deal’s biggest obstacle, wrote Rob Rains, director of policy research at Washington Analysis.
State regulators will be using a net benefits test to review the deal, he wrote, “so a settlement of some kind would be necessary to garner approval — and that still may not be enough.”
Dominion shares were up 9.85 percent to $67.81 in midday trading. NextEra was down 5 percent to $88.70
Jeffrey Tomich contributed to this report.
