New York, May 18, 2026, 08:04 EDT
NextEra Energy is buying Dominion Energy in a $66.8 billion all-stock deal, set to form the largest regulated electric utility company globally. The deal comes as utilities look to expand for growing demand from AI-linked data centers. Regulated utilities have rates and profits controlled by government regulators.
Timing is the key here. Data centers—big computer hubs that handle cloud and AI work—are now driving U.S. electricity demand. Dominion is right in the middle of Northern Virginia’s “Data Center Alley.” The Wall Street Journal said data centers made up 28% of Dominion’s state electricity sales last year. The Wall Street Journal
NextEra is also expanding its presence in PJM Interconnection, the power market covering Virginia and other parts of the eastern U.S., through the deal. The race to support tech demand is moving past clean power pledges, focusing more on building plants, transmission, and local grid infrastructure.
The combined group would serve around 10 million utility accounts in Florida, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, and control 110 gigawatts of generation. One gigawatt is 1,000 megawatts. They said they see more than 130 GW of large-load deals, referring to customers like data centers and industrials that use a lot of electricity.
Dominion shareholders are set to get 0.8138 shares of NextEra for each Dominion share. After the deal, NextEra investors will hold about 74.5% of the combined company, while Dominion shareholders get roughly 25.5%. Dominion holders will also keep getting the company’s quarterly dividend till the deal closes and receive a one-time $360 million cash payout at closing, paid out over the outstanding Dominion shares.
NextEra Chairman and CEO John Ketchum said electricity demand is “rising faster than it has in decades” and scale is more important now. Dominion Chair and CEO Robert Blue said the deal brings “scale and balance sheet” to put toward generation, transmission, and grid spending. NextEra Energy Newsroom
NextEra Energy and Dominion are moving early to avoid a backlash from ratepayers. The two laid out a plan to offer $2.25 billion in bill credits for Dominion customers across Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina over two years once the deal closes, and said the Dominion brands will stay.
Southern Co. and Duke Energy now face a bigger competitor after the deal. NextEra’s market value was near $194.7 billion ahead of Monday’s regular session. Southern traded with a market value of $104.4 billion and Duke at $94.2 billion. Dominion held a market value around $54.3 billion.
Dominion shares jumped over 12% in premarket after the news. NextEra stock dropped ahead of the bell. Investors saw Dominion as the short-term winner.
NextEra was already shifting into the data-center power market. Back in December, it put out news of a deal with Google Cloud to build several GW-scale data center campuses and the related generation. The companies said they have about 3.5 GW of projects either running or under contract.
Ketchum didn’t mince words on the demand surge. On the last earnings call, he said NextEra sees “2 to 5 GW for hyperscalers”—the big cloud firms ramping up AI infrastructure, according to Utility Dive. Utility Dive
The deal could get weighed down by size, slow progress or politics. It still needs shareholder and antitrust sign-offs, plus green lights from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and regulators in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. The companies said delays or tough conditions from regulators, as well as problems with integration or higher costs, might hurt the deal’s expected value.
Even if it gets regulators’ approval, building enough power is still tough. NextEra lacks some permits, land, and firm deals for certain data-center power projects. Back in March, Reuters said it was still uncertain which data-center power projects announced in the last two years would actually get built.
