NextEra Energy continues to stake out a position as a clean-energy leader. Already the self-proclaimed “world’s largest generator of renewable energy” with more than 17 GW of wind and solar generation in North America, the company is now dabbling in hydrogen energy.
During the company’s second-quarter earnings call with financial analysts Friday, senior executives said that they are taking a “toe-in-the-water” approach, as they did with solar and battery storage, to green hydrogen. NextEra’s Florida Power & Light plans to propose a $65 million pilot project that will use “clipped,” or unneeded, solar energy to produce 100% green hydrogen through a 20-MW electrolysis system.
The hydrogen can be used to replace some natural gas consumed at one of the three turbines at the Okeechobee Clean Energy Center. The project is expected to be online in 2023.
“We remain confident as ever that wind, solar and battery storage will be hugely disruptive to the country’s existing generation fleet,” NextEra CFO Rebecca Kujawa said. “However, to achieve an emissions-free future, we believe that other technologies will be necessary, and we are particularly excited about the long-term potential of hydrogen.”
Kujawa said the Juno Beach, Fla.-based company will continue to evaluate other potential hydrogen opportunities across its businesses, though she said the near-term investments will be small when compared with NextEra’s overall capital program.
The company says it has already invested more than $20 billion in renewable technologies. Its NextEra Energy Resources subsidiary has a backlog of 14.4 GW of renewables projects — more, it said, than the operating wind and solar portfolios of all but two other companies in the world.
“There’s clearly an opportunity … to displace the last 10% of the carbon emissions out of the electric sector by manufacturing hydrogen with renewables [in five to 10 years],” CEO Jim Robo said. “This is going to drive gigawatts and gigawatts and gigawatts and gigawatts of renewable demand in this country. There is no one better positioned than us to take advantage of that. This is a big strategic initiative for us, and we’re going to drive it, and it’s going to be very important for this company.”
Robo also told analysts NextEra remains very interested in Santee Cooper, South Carolina’s troubled utility. (See NextEra Plans to Combine FPL, Gulf Power Utilities.)
“We continue to be focused on trying to make that happen,” he said. “I continue to believe that there’s not a utility in the country that we couldn’t run more efficiently and better for customers.”
NextEra reported second-quarter net income of $1.275 billion ($2.59/share), up from $1.234 billion ($2.56/share) a year ago. The company’s adjusted earnings came in $2.61/share, exceeding the Zacks Investment Research consensus estimate of $2.50/share.
The company’s share price gained $2.32 after opening at $282.88 on Friday, but it slid along with the rest of the market during the day. It closed at $280.25, a 79-cent drop from the previous close.
