NextEra is doubling down on supplying the energy infrastructure to power artificial intelligence, framing the data center boom as a central factor driving the “golden age of power demand.”
To usher in its much-anticipated Investor Day, the energy giant this morning announced a flurry of new deals, including with both Google and Meta. This comes as NextEra, which in recent years has become the world’s largest renewable power company, reframes its position in the market as an all-of-the-above energy partner for hyperscalers and other large loads.
The company expects power demand to grow roughly six times faster in the next two decades than it has historically, and for data centers to represent 43% of that growth between now and 2032.
NextEra is anticipating at least 15 gigawatts of data center “hub” development by 2035, according to slides presented to investors; the upside case could be double that, or 30 GW. The company has identified more than 20 potential locations for the hubs, and expects to expand that list to 40 in the next year.
But while these projects will ostensibly rely largely on renewables, the company added that they will also be “supporting increased gas origination.”
The hyperscale deals
Against this backdrop, NextEra will partner directly with Google Cloud to develop new gigawatt-scale data center campuses, with accompanying energy generation and capacity. They are currently developing the first three campuses — though have not announced locations or timelines — and are exploring future locations and expansion plans.
Google has already contracted roughly 3.5 GW of energy capacity from NextEra, including most prominently the power from the planned restart of Iowa’s Duane Arnold nuclear facility. Announced in late October, Google will buy power from the facility if and when NextEra is able to restart it under a 25-year-deal. The power station has 615 megawatts of capacity, and is expected to return to service in 2029.
The two companies also announced a technology collaboration, using NextEra data and Google Cloud’s AI for better and more resilient field operations. The product, slated for release in mid-2026, will be designed to better predict equipment issues and “proactively respond” to problems including supply chain bottlenecks and weather disruptions. It will also incorporate three types of Google forecasting products — time-series, weather, and power flow modeling — to help with utility planning and grid management in the face of aging assets, storms, and load growth.
Meanwhile, NextEra also agreed to supply Meta with about 2.5 GW of clean energy capacity. These span 11 power purchase agreements and two energy storage agreements; these include four solar energy and battery projects in New Mexico under a rate structure that allows large customers to specifically contract clean energy.
The company anticipates these projects to enter service between 2026 and 2028. They will add to the nearly 500 MW of projects that Meta has previously contracted with NextEra.
NextEra’s gas era
The company also announced new gas deals, the latest in what has been a year of expanding its gas portfolio as demand for the fossil fuel grows. The company told investors this morning that it has secured turbine slots for 4 GW of combined-cycle gas plants.
The first: NextEra is buying the natural gas retailer Symmetry Energy Solutions from Energy Capital Partners. The terms of the deal, which is expected to close in the first quarter of 2026, were not disclosed. The company serves 5,500 large C&I customers and 80,000 residential and small customers in 34 states.
Also, the company is partnering with Basin Electric Power Cooperative in North Dakota to explore jointly developing a new combined-cycle gas-fueled plant; the companies submitted an application to the Southwest Power Pool to evaluate the potential interconnection and transmission requirements. The plant would have a capacity of nearly 1.5 GW, and “help meet demand from large-scale technology infrastructure such as data centers,” according to the announcement.
This comes as NextEra and many of its peers, not to mention the hyperscalers themselves, increasingly embrace gas. In addition to its renewables projects, NextEra has an enormous gas generation portfolio, which earlier this year got a major boost via a framework agreement with GE Vernova that could support “multiple gigawatts” for data centers and other large loads, NextEra CEO John Ketchum said on an earnings call.
That said, the company has been very vocal about how much the AI boom has boosted its renewables business — and that gas has some inherent drawbacks. Using new gas-fired generation to meet load growth “won’t be available at scale until 2030,” Ketchum said on that same call. Those timelines are made longer by persistent gas turbine shortages and high prices. Meanwhile, renewables can be built in just a year or two, as evidenced by the Meta deals.
In 2024, the company added more than 12 GW of renewables and storage to its backlog, and that demand has held steady in 2025, hovering at or above 3 GW each quarter. As one slide in today’s deck reads, “decarbonized solutions still matter for large load customers.”
