By Tom Kleckner
NextEra Energy CEO Jim Robo said Friday that battery-backed “near firm” wind and solar power will be increasingly competitive by 2025.
Speaking during NextEra’s quarterly and year-end earnings call with financial analysts, Robo predicted that new near firm wind will be a $20 to $30/MWh product and near firm solar a $30 to $40/MWh product in five years.
“At these prices, new near firm renewables will be cheaper than the operating cost of most existing coal, nuclear and less efficient oil- and gas-fired generation units,” he said. “We will be at the vanguard of building a sustainable energy era that is both clean and affordable, and we are driving very hard to continue to be at the forefront of the disruption that is occurring within the energy sector.”
Robo said his company is poised to take advantage of the “enormous disruption” taking place within the nation’s generating fleet.
“Our confidence in renewables being the low-cost generation alternative in the middle of this decade remains stronger than ever,” Robo said. “We expect the disruptive nature of renewables to be terrific for customers, terrific for the environment and terrific for shareholders by helping to drive tremendous growth for this company over the next decade.”
The Florida-based company fell short of analysts’ expectations by reporting fourth-quarter earnings of $975 million ($1.99/share). Although that more than doubled 2018’s fourth-quarter earnings of $422 million ($0.88/share), NextEra’s adjusted earnings of $706 million ($1.44/share) came in below Zacks Investment Research’s consensus estimate of $1.54/share.
The company reported year-end earnings of $3.8 billion ($7.76/share), down from $6.6 billion ($13.88/share), in 2018. NextEra also reaffirmed a 6 to 8% growth rate in adjusted earnings per share through 2021.
Robo said NextEra’s performance “was strong both financially and operationally, and we had outstanding execution on our initiatives to continue to drive future growth across the company.” Wall Street sided with Robo, driving the stock price up $6.38 shortly after market open to close at $263.70.
Renewable energy will play a major role in NextEra’s ongoing performance. The company said NextEra Energy Resources, its wholesale electricity supplier, added more than 5.8 GW to its contracted renewables backlog and commissioned another 2.7 GW of wind and solar projects. More than half of the solar additions included a battery storage component, Robo said.
