NextEra Energy to buy Dominion in $66.8 billion US power deal amid AI boom

May 18 (Reuters) – NextEra Energy will buy Dominion Energy in a $66.8 billion deal, the companies said on Monday, in one of the largest acquisitions in the U.S. power industry as utilities chase surging electricity demand from AI-driven data centers.

The deal adds to a wave of consolidation in the industry, as utilities race to bulk up their portfolios to cater to the unprecedented surge in power demand.

Florida-based NextEra is one of the world’s largest energy developers and access to Dominion Energy’s portfolio would enable it to expand into the PJM Interconnection region and capitalize on opportunities in Virginia, one of the biggest data-center markets.

NextEra said it would exchange 0.8138 of its stock for each outstanding share of Dominion and upon closing NextEra shareholders would own 74.5% of the combined company.

The transaction is expected to close in 12 to 18 months.

As of March 31, Dominion Energy had $44.11 billion in total long-term debt.

The transaction builds on NextEra’s efforts to tap into surging demand for supplying electricity to data centers being developed by Big Tech. Last year, the utility had signed an agreement with Alphabet’s Google to reopen a nuclear power plant in Iowa.

Virginia-based Dominion has nearly 51 gigawatts of contracted data center capacity and counts Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Equinix, CoreWeave and CyrusOne as its customers.

Dominion’s Virginia service territory includes Northern Virginia’s “Data Center Alley,” the world’s largest concentration of data centers and one of the fastest-growing electricity markets globally.

(Reporting by Vallari Srivastava in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)