Dominion Energy and NextEra Energy have agreed to combine. The move will create the largest electricity producer in the United States.
The Wall Street Journal reports-
“The tie-up would combine two of the largest U.S. utilities into an East Coast energy titan with 10 million customer accounts in Florida, the Carolinas and Virginia. It is expected to close within the next 18 months and would require approval from a handful of state and federal regulators.”
Dominion, a giant in Virginia, is about a quarter of the size of NextEra in terms of market value.
What does this mean for Dominion customers?
Dominion says nothing will change from the perspective of their consumers.
Dominion released a statement that read in part,
“You can count on the same reliable service, dedicated team, and familiar ways to interact with us. The Dominion Energy utility names aren’t changing, and the combination will not affect how we operate locally, serve our customers, or engage with the community. Dominion Energy leadership will still be here and job protections for Dominion Energy employees will ensure you continue to be served by the people you know.”
Sounds nice. That statement may have too much fluff to be real. We’ll see.
Can We Expect More Data Centers?
From NextEra’s perspective, this deal could be very specific in terms of its purpose. Dominion Energy has a lot of natural-gas fired power plants and Virginia has a lot of data centers. Both of those elements lineup perfectly for NextEra.
In December, The Wall Street Journal reported-
“NextEra Energy said [December 8] that it will partner with Alphabet’s Google Cloud to build new, large data center campuses paired with power generation across the U.S., and is working with Exxon Mobil to develop natural-gas fired power plants that would include carbon capture and storage for large customers.”
“NextEra and Google are already developing the first three data center campuses and looking to identify more locations.”
So now NextEra Energy buys up Dominion Energy and gets more gas-fired plant capacity and more availability for data centers in a place where data centers are already flourishing. Then what this really means for Dominion customers and Virginians across the Commonwealth is more data centers, increase in demand for electricity and therefore the possibility of higher rates.
This looks like a great deal for NextEra Energy, kind of a bail out for Dominion Energy, and possibly a bad deal for Virginia.