NextEra Energy beats profit estimates on surging clean energy demand
July 22 (Reuters) - Top U.S. renewable power producer NextEra Energy Inc (NEE.N) on Friday topped Wall Street estimates for second-quarter profit, helped by higher demand for clean energy.
Record temperatures and high natural gas and coal prices have sent utility bills surging, driving demand for alternative sources of energy like renewables and battery-storage systems, benefiting companies such as NextEra.
U.S. President Joe Biden in June waived tariffs on solar panels imported from some Asian countries for two years, providing a reprieve to the U.S. solar sector that has been under trade department scrutiny over alleged tariff dodging related to goods made in China. read more
About a week after the exemption, NextEra lifted its adjusted earnings forecasts for 2022 through 2025.
The order backlog of NextEra Energy Resources, the company's clean energy business, swelled by more than 2,000 megawatts (MW) of new projects from the first quarter, across solar (1,200 MW), wind (815 MW), and storage projects (20 MW).
One megawatt can power about 1,000 U.S. homes.
The unit's quarterly adjusted earnings grew 19% to $683 million.
NextEra's Florida Power & Light (FPL), the nation's biggest utility, reported a profit of $989 million in the second quarter, up 12% from a year earlier.
As part of FPL's decarbonization goal, NextEra plans to generate power for the utility mainly through a mix of solar, battery storage, existing nuclear, green hydrogen and other renewable sources by 2045. The utility generated about 70% of its electricity through gas last year.
Net income attributable to NextEra for the three months ended June 30 was $1.38 billion, or 70 cents per share, compared with a profit of $256 million, or 13 cents per share, a year earlier.
Excluding items, the company earned 81 cents per share and topped Wall Street estimates for a 10th straight quarter. Analysts were expecting a profit of 73 cents a share.
Revenue rose 32% to $5.18 billion, compared with market expectations of $5.17 billion.
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Reporting by Ruhi Soni in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Scott DiSavino in New York; Editing by Vinay Dwivedi, Kirsten Donovan
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