NextEra Energy announced Monday it will acquire Dominion Energy in a massive $66.8 billion transaction, marking one of the power sector’s biggest deals as companies scramble to meet growing electricity needs driven by artificial intelligence data centers.
The acquisition represents part of an industry-wide consolidation trend, with energy companies working to expand their operations to serve unprecedented power consumption increases.
The Florida-based NextEra ranks among the globe’s top energy developers, and acquiring Dominion Energy’s assets will allow the company to enter the PJM Interconnection market while taking advantage of Virginia’s position as a major data center hub.
Under the agreement terms, NextEra will provide 0.8138 shares of its stock for every Dominion share outstanding, resulting in NextEra investors controlling 74.5% of the merged entity.
Company officials expect the deal to finalize within 12 to 18 months.
Dominion Energy carried $44.11 billion in total long-term debt as of March 31.
This purchase advances NextEra’s strategy to capitalize on booming data center electricity requirements from major technology companies. The utility previously reached an agreement with Alphabet’s Google in the past year to restart an Iowa nuclear facility.
The Virginia-headquartered Dominion currently serves nearly 51 gigawatts of data center capacity under contract, with clients including Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Equinix, CoreWeave and CyrusOne.
Dominion operates in Virginia’s service area that encompasses Northern Virginia’s “Data Center Alley,” recognized as the planet’s largest data center concentration and among the world’s fastest-expanding electricity markets.
