NextEra Energy sees 9.7% rise in adjusted EPS in Q3, highlights major investments and future growth strategies amid rising energy demand.

OPERATOR - (00:02:04)

Good day and welcome to Nextera Energy Inc. Q3 2025 earnings conference call. All participants will be in the listen only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press Star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would like to turn the conference over to Mark Eidelman, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Mark Eidelman - Director of Investor Relations - (00:02:43)

Thank you Steve. Good morning everyone and thank you for joining our third quarter 2025 financial results conference call for Nextera Energy. With me this morning are John Ketchum, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Nextera Energy Mike Dunn, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Nextera Energy Armando Pimentel, President and Chief Executive Officer of Florida Power and Light Company Brian Bolster, President and Chief Executive Officer of Nextera Energy Resources and Mark Hickson, Executive Vice President of Nextera Energy. John will start with opening remarks and then Mike will provide an overview of our third quarter results. Our executive team will then be available to answer your questions. We will be making forward looking statements during this call based on current expectations and assumptions which are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from our forward looking statements if any of our key assumptions are incorrect or because of other factors discussed in today's earnings news release and the comments made during this conference call in the risk factors section of the accompanying presentation or in our latest reports and filings with the securities and Exchange Commission, each of which can be found on our website www.nexteraenergy.com. we do not undertake any duty to update any forward looking statements. Today's presentation also includes references to non Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) financial measures. You should refer to the information contained in the slides accompanying today's presentation for definitional information and reconciliations of historical non Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) measures to the closest Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) financial measure. With that, I'll turn the call over to John.

John Ketchum - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:04:20)

Thanks Mark and good morning everyone. Nextera Energy delivered strong third quarter results with adjusted earnings per share increasing 9.7% year over year. In addition, through the first nine months of the year, our adjusted earnings per share has increased 9.3% year over year. The continued strong financial and operational performance at both FPL and Energy Resources positions our company well to meet its overall objectives for the year. America is in a golden age of power demand. The country needs more electricity than ever. New electrons can't get on the grid fast enough. Nextera Energy is uniquely positioned to help lead this pivotal moment for our sector. We develop, build and operate all forms of energy infrastructure. At our core we're a development company. We have a world class platform that enables us to quickly build low cost generation in electric and gas transmission. We're not just recontracting around existing assets, we're also building new energy infrastructure needed to power America. Our two world class companies, Florida Power and Light Company and NextEra Energy Resources, are the perfect complement to one another day in and day out. We are powering today and building tomorrow. Importantly, we are in terrific position to continue delivering near term and long term value to our customers and shareholders. As we discussed with you earlier this month, our long term earnings growth drivers are extensive both inside and outside Florida. Simply put, we have many ways to grow across our platform both this decade and and the next. We are excited to discuss this in much more in greater detail with you at our Investor conference on December 8th. The Florida Economy continues to see significant economic growth and Florida Power and Light Company continues to make smart long term investments to serve that growth while keeping bills low and reliability high. We put our customers first and the results speak for themselves. FPL customers experience top decile reliability that's nearly 60% better than the national average. And typical FPL residential bills are 20% lower than they were 20 years ago when adjusted for inflation. And that's not by accident. FPL's non fuel O&M costs are 70% lower than national average and over 50% lower than second best in our industry. And approximately 90% of FPL's power generation comes from the nation's largest gas fired fleet and four nuclear units. This baseload power is the backbone of our system, giving us the flexibility to meet our customers needs with the lowest cost forms of energy right now, solar and storage. Remember, a robust gas and nuclear fleet means we don't necessarily need nighttime electrons. We need more low cost electrons to meet our daytime peak. Which is why solar and storage are the perfect complement and choice for FPL system and customers. Today. FPL is also preparing for the future which will require even more baseload gas generation and perhaps further down the road, nuclear generation. And it's all happening in a state that needs more electricity, not less. Just like America, Florida is one of the nation's fastest growing states and the world's 16th largest economy. It's why FPL plans to invest approximately $40 billion over the next four years in new all the above energy infrastructure including 5.3 gigawatts in solar, 3.4 gigawatts in battery storage and a gas peaker plant that is pending regulatory approvals. We look forward to continuing the successful multi decade approach of adding low cost generation to meet Florida's growing need for power while also increasing reliability and keeping customer bills low. This approach is at the heart of of our new four year rate proposal. As a reminder, on February 28th we initiated FPL's 2025 base rate proceeding for new rates effective in January 2026. We reached a proposed settlement agreement in August with most of the intervenors in the proceeding. Reflecting a broad set of constituents across our customer base. The four year proposed agreement would provide an allowed midpoint regulatory return on equity of 10.95% with a range of 9.95% to 11.95%. There would be no change to FPL's equity ratio of 59.6%. The proposed agreement also includes a rate stabilization mechanism similar to what we filed in February. The proposed settlement also includes two new large load tariffs that are designed to ensure large load customers pay for the incremental generation needed to serve them. We believe the proposed settlement is fair, balanced and constructive and supports our continued ability to provide highly reliable low cost service for our customers through the end of the decade. If the proposed agreement is approved, typical residential customer bills would increase only about 2% annually between 2025 and 2029. This means bills would remain well below the current national average, providing our customers with the economic certainty that comes from a four year rate agreement. We completed evidentiary hearings earlier this month and expect the Florida Public Service Commission to provide a final decision on the proposed settlement agreement on November 20th. This summer we received a constructive outcome on federal tax credits providing policy certainty for our renewables build and energy resources. We expect to receive tax credits for our renewable development plan through 2030. While our suppliers are positioned to be fiat compliant, we've also been able to reduce development risk for a large part of our planned build. That's because Energy resources has approximately 1.5 times coverage of the project inventory required to support its development expectations through 2030. This provides us the Runway we need to continue delivering low cost power solutions to our customers who need power today and tomorrow. Renewables are just the start. We also plan on delivering power through battery storage and gas fired generation and nuclear. Over the second and third quarters alone, we have originated 2.8 gigawatts of new battery storage opportunities as we continue to grow the world's leading storage business backed by a domestic supply base with batteries made in America. We're also leading the much needed development of linear transmission infrastructure, both electric and and gas and our customer supply business has proven integral to serving data center customers. We're tying it all together through our AI driven world class development platform and decades of experience. And we are doing it at a time when the combination of development capabilities and a strong balance sheet are more important than ever. It's why we are ideally positioned to work with hyperscalers who are increasingly looking to power their business by bringing their own generation. We are unique in that we combine a national footprint, a strong balance sheet, supply chain capabilities and experience in building all forms of generation and transmission together with unmatched customer relationships and an industry leading team on a development platform second to none. And that's what we believe it takes to serve this new customer class which is vesting tens of billions of dollars per project. Hyperscalers, data center operators and load serving entities continue to tell us they need solutions for large load today and tomorrow to address growing energy demand across America. As a leader in serving this demand, I am pleased to announce we have entered into a 25 year power purchase agreement with Google that pending regulatory approvals enables us to recommission our Duane Arnold Energy center nuclear plant in Palo, Iowa, just outside of Cedar Rapids. The 615 megawatt plant is just the beginning and will help power Google's growing cloud and AI infrastructure in Iowa once it returns to operation, which we expect to occur no later than the first quarter of 2029 and perhaps as early as the fourth quarter of 2028. Duane Arnold shut down in August 2020 after safely and reliably serving eastern Iowa for decades and and because we carefully and methodically went through the decommissioning process, we have confidence in the investment required to restart it. During our evaluation of recommissioning Duane Arnold, we collaborated closely with the plant's minority owners, Central Iowa Power Cooperative, known as cipco, which provides power to the local community, and Corn Belt Power Cooperative. As part of that collaboration, SIPCO will purchase 50 megawatts of the plant's output of on terms and conditions consistent with the Google ppa and we have signed definitive agreements to acquire CIPCO and corn belt's combined 30% interest in the plant, which will bring our ownership to 100%. Restarting Duane Arnold marks an important milestone for Nextera Energy. Our partnership with Google not only brings nuclear energy back to Iowa, it also accelerates the development of next generation nuclear technology. With the support of the Trump administration, Google and Nextera Energy are creating more than 1600 jobs and adding more than $9 billion to the local economy, creating a win for the US a win for both companies and a win for Iowa. As a demonstration of the pride of working at Duane Arnold and for Nextera Energy, a significant number of Duane Arnold's previous workforce are looking to return to work at the facility and our team working to recommission Duane Arnold includes many of the same employees who decommissioned the plant five years ago. Beyond the nuclear plant, we have ample land available to provide additional power and capacity solutions, including battery storage to support data center build and potential future expansion. As part of the agreement, Nextera Energy and Google have also signed an agreement to explore the development of advanced nuclear generation to be deployed in the US which will help power America's growing electricity needs. Of course, to move that forward, we'll be certain to appropriately mitigate and limit our financial exposure as new nuclear technologies continue to advance. We expect Duane Arnold will be eligible for a nuclear production tax credit with a 10% energy community bonus. And once restarted, we expect Duane Arnold to contribute up to $0.16 of annual adjusted EPS on average over its first 10 years of operation. Duane Arnold is one example of data center hubs we are developing across the country. When you put it all together, our opportunity set is not contained to a single utility service territory. Nextera Energy has a national footprint. We serve America and have relationships with all types of customers, including cooperatives, municipalities and utilities of all sizes looking to attract data center load to their service territories. We are committing to building new infrastructure and building energy for our customers where and when they want it. And I believe there is no team and no company in this country with a comprehensive set of skills and balance sheet better positioned to get the job done. Bottom line, we have many ways to grow and we remain well positioned not just for the rest of the decade, but into the next decade as well. We look forward to sharing many more details with you in December. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mike to walk you through detailed results from the quarter.

Mike Dunn - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer - (00:18:20)

Thank you John and good morning everyone. For the third quarter of 2025, FPL's earnings per share increased by $0.08 year over year. The principal driver of this performance was FPL's regulatory capital employee growth of approximately 8% year over year. FPL's capital expenditures were approximately $2.5 billion for the quarter and we expect FPL's full year capital investments to be between 9.3 and $9.8 billion. For the 12-month period ending September 2025, Months ending September 2025. FPL's reported return on equity for regulatory purposes will be approximately 11.7%. During the third quarter, we reversed approximately $218 million of reserve amortization, leaving FPL with a balance of roughly $473 million. Looking forward to we expect to use a portion of the remaining reserve amortization balance for the remainder of the year. FPL's third quarter retail sales decreased 1.8% from the prior year comparable period due to milder weather. On a weather normalized basis from the prior year comparable period, retail sales increased by 1.9% due to an increase in customer growth underlying usage. Now let's turn to Energy Resources which reported adjusted earnings growth of approximately 13% year over year. At Energy Resources, adjusted earnings per share increased by $0.06 year over year. Contributions from new investments increased $0.09 per share, primarily driven by continued growth in our renewables portfolio. Contributions from our existing clean energy portfolio remained unchanged year over year despite weaker wind resource due to better performance at our nuclear fleet. Wind resource for the third quarter of 2025 was approximately 90% of the long term average versus 93% in the third quarter of 2024. The comparative contribution from our customer supply business increased by $0.06 per share primarily driven by timing origination activity during the quarter. All other impacts decreased by $0.09 per share driven by asset recycling during the third quarter last year as well as higher financing costs mostly related to borrowing costs to support our new investments. Energy Resources had a strong quarter of new renewables and storage originations, adding 3 gigawatts to the backlog. With these additions, our backlog now totals nearly 30 gigawatts after taking into account more than 1.7 gigawatts of new projects placed into service since our last earnings call. We expect the backlog additions will go into service over the next few years and into 2029. This marks the sixth consecutive quarter that Energy Resources has added 3 or more gigawatts to its backlog. We continue to see strong customer demand for ready now capacity solutions as we had our strongest quarter ever in battery storage origination with 1.9 gigawatts of additions to our backlog. Turning now to our third quarter 2025 consolidated results, adjusted earnings per share from corporate and other decreased by $0.04 per share year over year. Our long term financial expectations remain unchanged. We will be disappointed if we're not able to deliver financial results at or near the top end of our adjusted earnings per share expectation ranges in 2025, 2026 and 2027 from 2023 to 2027, we continue to expect that our average annual growth in operating cash flow will be at or above our adjusted earnings per share compound annual growth rate range. And we also continue to expect to grow our dividends per share at roughly 10% per year through at least 2026 off a 2024 base. As always, our expectations assume our caveats. This concludes our prepared remarks and with that we will open the line for questions.

OPERATOR - (00:23:07)

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your Touchstone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press Star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble a roster. The first question comes from Steve Fleishman with Holfi Research.

Steve Fleishman - Equity Analyst - (00:23:51)

Hi, good morning. Congrats on the Duane Arnold News. Maybe just on that topic, John, can you give us any sense on what the cost of restart might be and also the buy in price of the 30% that you're buying in of Duane Arnold, thanks. Yeah, hey, thanks, Steve. Appreciate the question. So first of all, you know, just the sensitivities. We're not going to go into the capex number, you know, on this call. But needless to say, you know, we feel very good about our ability to build this to recommission Duane very efficiently. You know, the plant's in great shape. As I said before, the team that will be doing the recommissioning is the same team that did the decommissioning. I've been out there recently, tour the facility. It's in good shape. So we'll provide more details on that as we move forward. On your second question, on the 30% buyout of Cipco in Corn Belt, it's really pretty straightforward. I mean, that buyout was done in exchange for us assuming their decommissioning liability. It's pretty much that straightforward. And for from our standpoint, we have more than ample decommissioning funds that had already been set aside. So I think it's attractive for us. I think it's attractive for CIPCO and Corn Belt as well. Win, win for all parties involved. Okay. And then one other question, different topic. Just it was great to see another.

John Ketchum - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:25:39)

3 gigawatt quarter add, but there was a gigawatt remove from the backlog. Could you maybe just talk about that 1 gigawatt removal and what's driving that. Yeah, absolutely, Steve. This is pretty straightforward. So, as you said, we added 3 gigawatts. I mean, another really strong quarter of origination. And we are just seeing a lot of demand for renewables and storage in the market. And remember, so out of that 3 gigawatts, we put 1.7 gigawatts into service in the quarter. And really, I think what you're referencing is the 900 megawatts. Let me just break that down. So we removed 650 megawatts from backlog, which was pretty conservative by us, I think, you know, we're pretty conservative on how we manage the backlog. We did that, you know, for various development reasons. And this is really on some smaller projects that are. We are really. That we're continuing to manage as we move forward. I think we're going to get it all back in 26 and 27 on that 650 megawatts. So it'll just come a little bit later. And then there was another 250megawatts that we just had a little bit of a permitting delay on. So we're just shifting that from 25 to 26. And when you put that 900 megawatts together, it's what, you know, call it 1/30 of the backlog. But feel good about getting all that back. It just comes a little bit, a little bit later in time. You know, otherwise, had you included that, you know, we would have been at the bottom end of the 24, 25 range. And, you know, I think, as investors saw, you know, we've reaffirmed our expectations through 27, including the fact we'd be disappointed not to be at the high and in the range. And so, you know, these moves really just don't have any impact on our ability to meet our financial expectations that we've communicated to investors. And as you look out, you know, a lot of positives to see in the backlog, I mean, 28 and beyond, are shaping up unbelievably well. We just got a great head start on those years. So, you know, overall, you know, we're in really, really good shape where we sit now. And I have no concerns about where the backlog sits, and it's as strong as it's ever been. Okay, thank you.

OPERATOR - (00:28:23)

The next question comes from the line of Shar Foreha with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Shar Foreha - Equity Analyst - (00:28:29)

Hey, guys, good morning.

John Ketchum - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:28:32)

Good morning.

Shar Foreha - Equity Analyst - (00:28:34)

Morning. John. John, I know just. I know you kind of mentioned to.

John Ketchum - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:28:38)

Steve you didn't want to get into the actual CAPEX numbers. Of Duane Arnold. But let me try to maybe ask it a little bit differently and just get into the qualitative part of the plan. I know there's obviously a bogey of 1.6 billion for a Pennsylvania plant that's kind of under budget. Now you kind of mentioned that this current plant is in good shape. Can you just maybe directionally talk about what you're seeing with that plant and how we should view it without going into the numbers? Yeah. Hey, thanks, Char. Hey, Charles, welcome back by the way. Great to have you back.

Char - (00:29:15)

Thanks for having me back.

John Ketchum - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:29:17)

Yeah, yeah, it's great to hear from you, so. Sure. I mean, I'll just kind of, you know, without going into the numbers, you know, again, we've spent a lot of time going through Duane Arnold, a lot of diligence. And I'm going to go back to what I said before. Having the same team that did the decommissioning, leading the recommissioning is an enormous advantage because folks know exactly what was done. And so the plan that we have, we have a lot of certainty around. Right. And so I think the scope is pretty well defined and we know what needs to be done. The facility, you know, is, like I said, in really good shape. I mean, when I went through it, it was like we just kind of put a lock on the door and, you know, got the keys out and opened the lock back up and then we're, you know, we're going back through it. There's, you know, obviously some things, some work that has to be done to bring the plant back online, but the plants, the plant's in good shape and you know, we feel very good about our ability to execute against what's in front of us. Fantastic.

Char - (00:30:29)

And then John, just one last one is just, I guess given the lack. Of additional nuclear sites to kind of repower for you guys, do you see kind of the next wave of deals moving to CCGTS for energy resources? Are you seeing demand there, especially given the partnership you have with ge? Thanks.

John Ketchum - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:30:49)

Yeah, thanks, Char. So, you know, we have many ways to grow, which we talked about a month ago. And you know, I'll talk more about those in a minute. But one of those ways to grow is through new gas fired technology. Nobody's built more gas fired generation in this country in the last 20 years than the next era has. And so we've got a lot of experience at it and we're really a natural to get back into that area because of our development platform. It's so easy for us to take what we already have in terms of land agents permitting, all the supply chain capability that we have. You mentioned the partnership that we have with GE Vernova and the strong relationship that we have there, the customer relationships, all the things that go with that development platform. It's easy for us to pivot into gas. And I've said before, we have roughly a 20 gigawatt pipeline already developed because of that development platform and the efficiency that's built into it. And we're excited about what we're seeing on the combined cycle side and some of the opportunities that we have. And we'll talk more about this in December. But a unique advantage that we have is because it takes a little longer time to build gas fired generation, call it four, five, six years, a huge leg up that we have that we haven't talked as much about. Again, we'll focus on this in December is all the renewables and storage that we have. And so when data centers want to get online now and quickly and they want to secure a load interconnect by bringing their own generation, we can accommodate that because we have the solar and the storage that's ready to go and then the gas can come behind it. So we're in a bit of a unique position there in terms of our ability to really kind of hook and anchor data center build out as we position our portfolio for these larger scale data center buildouts we call data center hubs that can be followed on by gas, maybe SMR technology going back to the collaboration nationally that we have with Google. So just a lot to be excited about. Got it.

Char - (00:33:22)

Thanks again John. Big congrats and appreciate the kind words. See you soon.

John Ketchum - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:33:27)

Yeah, see you soon, Shark. Thank you.

OPERATOR - (00:33:32)

The next question comes from the line of Nicholas Campanella with Barklis. Please go ahead.

Nicholas Campanella - Equity Analyst - (00:33:39)

Hey, good morning. Thanks for all the updates. I just wanted to ask, going back on nuclear, you know, there's a lot of momentum right now for AP1000 and just curious what your appetite would be in participating in like that or if you know, in terms of new nuclear, should we be solely kind of focused on SMR and restarts of current large scale plants?

John Ketchum - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:34:01)

Thanks. Yeah, I think for us right now, I mean we have Dwayne Arnold that we talked about, we have Point beach, we have Seabrook, we have, you know, we'll be turning our attention to those two facilities as we optimize. But one thing that's really exciting is that, you know, we probably have 6 gigawatts of SMR capacity across those three sites, not to mention, you know, back to the development platform. We are a nationwide development company, right, that has a national footprint. So we also are looking at, you know, greenfield sites as well. Going back to that anchor point around having existing generation ready to go that can accommodate phase one, two, three of a data center build out as we wait for, for gas fired generation to come or SMR technology to come behind that. And we're doing a lot of work around SMRs that we'll talk more about in December. But I also want to go back to what I said about SMRs which is that we're going to be very disciplined in our capital allocation strategy and making sure that we have the right commercial and financial structure where we limit any financial exposure that we have as we invest in those facilities. But when you think about Nextera, we're really unique because the hyperscaler is investing tens of billions of dollars. This is not like the business four or five years ago competing against a lot of small developers. They can't do this.

Nicholas Campanella - Equity Analyst - (00:35:37)

Right.

John Ketchum - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:35:38)

The folks that can do this are large scale developers like Nextera that have a strong balance sheet, a track record, the credibility to be able to match what the hyperscaler needs and the ability to build across generation types. Whether it's renewables, whether it's storage, whether it's gas, whether it's nuclear, whether we need to bring a transmission solution to bear, whether we need to build a gas pipeline lateral to enable a gas build out. I mean all the things that we bring to the table are pretty unique. And again combined with that large balance sheet, the team and the customer relationships and the ability to secure load interconnects and work with utilities and co ops in municipalities and that really kind of puts us in a pretty small group of folks. And so as we look at the market really I think, you know, I look at the DOE letter that was, that was sent recently over to FERC and more of a focus on bring your own generation. I think that just absolutely plays to all of our strengths and advantages. The future is exciting.

Nicholas Campanella - Equity Analyst - (00:36:54)

Hey, that's great. I really appreciate that. Good points. I know that you've been doing this 6 to 8 outlook for a long time. You basically have been beating that every year. And you look at some other premium companies out there now doing seven to nine. What's your philosophy and how you're thinking. About long term growth and is that. A consideration at all as we are thinking about what could be out there. On the analyst day? Thanks.

John Ketchum - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:37:21)

All great questions and we'll address those on December 8th. Have a great day. Thank you.

OPERATOR - (00:37:33)

The next question comes from the line of Julian Dumoulin Smith, please go ahead.

Julian Dumoulin Smith - Equity Analyst - (00:37:41)

Hey, congratulations Steve. Good to hear from you.

Steve Fleishman - Equity Analyst - (00:37:44)

Hey, thanks Julian. Thank you so much.

Julian Dumoulin Smith - Equity Analyst - (00:37:48)

Hey look, just wanted to follow up. On a couple things here. First, with respect to the gas and. Contracted gas strategy, can you speak a little bit to what you're expecting or what you've, what success you've had thus far? I know this may be digging a. Little bit into the December update, but. To the extent possible, can you discuss a little bit of the latest progress and should we expect more of these hyperscaler type announcements like Google, but to be parlayed back in the contracted guests and is there a cadence that you'd be care to share as you think. About this ramps up? I mean I know it's early days in that longer dated 20, 30 plus timeframe, but how would you begin to characterize that opportunity as it is, as it stands today?

John Ketchum - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:38:27)

Yeah, so a lot in the hopper is how I would describe it, Julian. You know, a lot of different things that we're, that we are working on. And I mentioned our data center hub strategy which I don't want to spend too much time on today because again we're going to get into that in December. Obviously building out combined cycle units is a big part of that. We think the things that we have in front of us are attractive across the class of hyperscalers that we see. We think the position that we have around our existing renewable portfolio is an enticing way to secure an early stage load interconnect as the gas comes later. And so the ability to provide gas with renewables and storage or with SMR technology, the ability to build out the infrastructure necessary to accommodate all that, whether it's transmission, whether it's gas pipelines, I think all plays to our strengths and our advantages together with the supply chain capability that we have. And so in terms of cadence, look, we look forward to kind of laying this out for you guys in December, but feel really good about the competitive positioning that we have today because again I go back to the fact that there are very few folks that can actually garner the trust, the confidence, the balance sheet, all the things that you saw with the partnership that we have with Google, that we're having a lot of success with other hyperscalers as well. That looks promising for our future more to come.

Julian Dumoulin Smith - Equity Analyst - (00:40:20)

Excellent. Thanks John. I appreciate it. Then related here just to elaborate a little bit further on that nat originations discussion here, can you elaborate a Little bit. I mean, obviously there's been some media attention around Esmeralda and Jackalope, for instance. Can you speak a little bit how that fits in? Were they in your backlog or the position? I mean, just trying to juxtapose the broader media conversation, which isn't particularly articulate.

John Ketchum - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:40:41)

About this versus what we're seeing in the quarterly update. Yeah, absolutely. So Esmeralda, you know, is just a development project. It was not in our backlog. It was a development project for the future on BLM land. I think the BLM was actually pretty clear that while they were not looking to permit this as one large project, they were going to entertain applications around individual projects. But remember, we have a massive pipeline, right? So this was just one piece of it. We spent no money on Esmeralda. It's a, it's a project in development that we could develop some day down the road. So really, there's really nothing to see there. And then on Jackalope, that project, we'll extend out a little bit more. We continue to work with the customer there and we'll see what happens. But again, that's just one small project in the grand scheme of things for, you know, a massive backlog that we have. And again, don't forget, I mean, that's why we have one and a half times coverage on our inventory. I don't worry about it at all. You know, we, we can easily draw from other projects in our pipeline to be able to satisfy customer needs as we go forward. And that puts us in incredibly good position. Excellent. Thanks, John.

Julian Dumoulin Smith - Equity Analyst - (00:42:12)

Appreciate it, team.

John Ketchum - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:42:13)

See you soon. Yeah, see you soon, Julian. Thank you.

OPERATOR - (00:42:19)

Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Carly Davenport with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Hey, good morning. Thanks so much for taking the questions. Maybe just another quick follow up on the backlog. You know, a lot of the additions this quarter coming beyond the 2027 timeframe. So just as we think about that potential pull forward in demand related to the tax credits rolling off that you all have referred to, is that strictly a 2028 plus opportunity or is there any opportunity to see that impact 26, 27 as well?

Carly Davenport - Equity Analyst - (00:42:52)

Yeah, I think, you know, the pull forward of demand, Carly, I think it just escalates as you get closer to 2030. So you just continue to see step ups there. And so for 26 and 27, we feel very good about, you know, where we, where we sit right now. You know, I think we've got, you know, more quarters to go in terms of filling the 27 piece, but you know, again, you know, we look at our financial plan for 26 and 27 in good shape and what I'm really focused on is that 28, 29, 30, because you know, there's just so many opportunities as you look to the back end of that decade and that natural pull, pull forward that you mentioned that we've seen historically where we could see a lot of customer demand not only in 28, but in 29 and 30. And we're so well positioned around FIAC and around our safe harbor position. I think we have some very unique competitive advantages that we will highlight and spend more time on in December. So as I look at the pipeline shaping up around 30 gigs and the way it's shaping up by year, I feel very good about where we sit.

John Ketchum - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:44:16)

Great, thank you for that. And then maybe just back on DWAYNE Arnold, the $0.16 of average accretion that you mentioned in the first 10 years of the PPA, is there any color that you can provide on the cadence or if there's significant variability year to year that we should be thinking about?

Carly Davenport - Equity Analyst - (00:44:32)

There is not significant variability year to year. The reason we said that is remember there's refueling outages for nuclear and in refueling years it's not that significant of an impact but you know, it moves around a little bit around refueling outages. So that's why we use that language.

John Ketchum - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:44:54)

Great, appreciate that, thank you. Next question comes from Bill Appicelli with ubs. Please go ahead.

OPERATOR - (00:45:06)

Hi, good morning. Just going back to follow up on Carly's question around the pull forward and just maybe you can speak to the development capabilities. You've sort of been averaging around this, around three gigs a quarter in the low end of that. Where can that go potentially in terms of just from a capability supply chain perspective? Well, you know, we're really well positioned on, on our, not only on our supply chain and the things we've been able to do around batteries and the supply chain, you know, positioning we have around the rest of the parts and equipment that you know, we plan to purchase, you guys know. Well, I mean transformers, electric switch gear, you know, other parts of the supply chain. I mean, I think that's going to create a natural competitive advantage which goes with having a strong balance sheet and a world class supply chain capability as we go into 28, 29, 30. That uniquely positions us for the opportunity that can come there. Right. Because we can do some things that others can't. So I feel very good about. And if you look historically on pull forward years, we have fared Very well on a market share basis compared to our competition there. And also as we start thinking about being able to not only do what I call kind of the bread and butter business around origination, but then also adding on being able to fold in renewables and storage into large load solutions, as I've mentioned a couple times on this call, I mean, it's really an incremental opportunity that we haven't had before as you think about serving that large load customer. So the demand pull forward is something that we're obviously very focused on and have positioned the business around. And I think we're going to be uniquely capable and positioned to capitalize on the opportunity it's going to bring. Great. And then just shifting gears at fpl, the large load growth, I guess. How is the valuation of that going? I think you've talked about maybe three gigs of initial sites or capability. I'm sure you'll speak more to this in December. But any color there around tariff structure or sort of the work and the conversations around bringing those customers in. Yeah, I'll turn that over to Armando. All right, thank you. Good morning. So, you know, we've got a couple of tariffs that are up for approval at the commission that we are going to hear about on November 20th. Regardless of that, we've had, you know, folks that have been pinging us all year on availability of getting onto our system, when can they get onto our system, and so on. So we are no different at Florida Power and Light than many of the utilities that you guys follow around the nation. These hyperscalers and these data center operators are looking to figure out where they can plug in and how quickly they can plug in. I think what John and Mike Dunn have mentioned before is that this is a potential opportunity at FPL later this decade. And I think for now that's right, that could certainly change. But we are spending a lot of time doing engineering studies for everyone that you could imagine. And we hope that the environment here in Florida is one that hyperscalers and data center operators will come to embrace. I mean, why not? We've got a great system at a low cost, so we feel really good about it. All right, great.

Bill Appicelli - (00:49:13)

Thanks for the time.

John Ketchum - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:49:17)

The next question comes from the line of David at Cato with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Oh, great.

Bill Appicelli - (00:49:25)

Hey, good morning. Was wondering if you could talk about how renewables are interacting with data centers, especially over the next couple of years for projects that you've been working on.

John Ketchum - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:49:36)

Was curious if there's any percentage of.

Bill Appicelli - (00:49:39)

Power needs that you find are typically covered by renewables.

John Ketchum - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:49:42)

When you're powering data centers, are you.

Bill Appicelli - (00:49:44)

Seeing any colocation opportunities and how does.

John Ketchum - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:49:48)

Battery storage get involved?

Bill Appicelli - (00:49:49)

So curious if you could give kind.

John Ketchum - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:49:51)

Of a sense of the typical relationship.

Bill Appicelli - (00:49:53)

Or design that you're seeing there.

John Ketchum - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:49:56)

Yeah, David, what we're seeing there is data centers want to get going immediately. Right. And so they want to build out the initial phases of their campus, which could be end up being 1,000, 3, 4, 5,000 acre campuses. Every thousand acres is about a gigawatt of capacity. But as they think about permitting and constructing their facility, the first thing they're looking for is a load interconnect. And you know, a lot of parts of the country in securing a load interconnect, you've got to bring your own generation. And so what's unique, I think about what we can do around renewables is we can get them over the hump over those first few years of being able to identify site, being able to identify a generation solution that's sufficient to get them that load interconnected, whether it's through a combination of renewables or renewables and battery storage. We've seen that in a number of places. We've also seen the ability to leverage like gridliance, where we can do upgrades on a system that can actually free up additional megawatts needed to secure that initial load interconnect. But that's the key. You got to get the load interconnect to be able to take the power off the grid, to be able to satisfy the initial phases. And many of the load serving entities are saying we'll bring your own generation to make that happen. And we're able to do that with renewables, with storage, with grid alliance. And then the plan is to bring the baseload generation behind it. And so when you can combine a comprehensive solution for the hyperscaler, that's what they're looking for. And a trusted partner that they know can get it done over time and we can grow right alongside with them as they're expanding their existing facility.

Bill Appicelli - (00:52:09)

Got it.

John Ketchum - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:52:10)

Makes sense.

Bill Appicelli - (00:52:10)

That's helpful. And was wondering if you could talk about what you're seeing in terms of.

John Ketchum - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:52:15)

Project returns, the trajectory there and is.

Bill Appicelli - (00:52:18)

There a case for higher returns too.

John Ketchum - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:52:20)

As we go forward through the end of the day?

Bill Appicelli - (00:52:22)

Yeah, that's a great question. And you know, I said this a month ago, returns have been higher than I've ever seen them in this, in this industry. And you know, I think that's in due in part to the unique competitive advantage you know, that we have. And it's exciting for us because as I think about, you know, all the opportunities that we have, not only this decade but into the next, recontracting is a big piece of that. And so, you know, we have a lot of existing generation that rolls off a contract by the end of the decade that we're going to be able to recontract into the market at, you know, much higher premiums. But look, it's just supply and demand. It's that simple. There's a lot of demand out there and there's just not as much supply to match it. And so that's commanding premiums in the market and high and attractive returns. And that's why it's great to be in a position where we have a really strong pipeline and a really strong supply chain position. And I think we're going to be uniquely positioned going forward to be able to capitalize on what is going to become just a growing market demand, particularly as we get to the end of this decade and into the next.

John Ketchum - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:53:46)

Okay, great, thank you. The next question comes from the line of Nick Amiguchi with Eve Core. Isi, please go ahead.

Nick Amiguchi - (00:54:00)

Hey, good morning guys. Just wanted to touch upon kind of the evolution that we just kind of left up. So as we kind of think about, you know, over the balance of this decade into the, into the next, how should we be thinking about the kind of the portfolio, the kind of culmination of that and kind of if we think about it by energy and generation source, Obviously we saw, you know, storage kind of pick up here from a backlog perspective. Just interested in kind of hearing your thoughts around it. Yeah, I mean, so as I think about the next decade, you know, we've always had Florida Power and Light and Florida Power and Light, you know, benefits from being, you know, in fastest growing state in the United States, 16th largest economy, you know, in the world. Strong growth as we accommodate all that population that, you know, continues to move into Florida. Don't see that strong slowing down, you know, next decade. But as you think about our regulated businesses, it's not just, you know, what I call kind of the baseload Florida power line. It's the large load with the large load tariff that we have not had before. It's electric transmission. There's an incredible demand for transmission around the country. We have the leading competitive transmission business in Nextera energy transmission. So a lot of capex opportunities and growth opportunities for neat as we go forward. And then you add on gas transmission as well, not only around the existing pipeline assets that we own today, but also I think some long haul greenfield opportunities that we'll be talking more about gas laterals to accommodate hyperscale build out. So that really helps to frame even a larger regulated business than we have had historically. And then you think about all the other levers and ways to grow that we have on the energy resources side, not just the renewable business that just gets stronger and stronger as we get into the next, into the end of this decade and then that'll carry into the next, but storage as well. You know, we are in a capacity short market storage is economically advantaged, it's flexible, it can be built very quickly, you know, in you know, 16 to 18 months, whereas gas fired peakers take four to five years, you know, in many cases. So very flexible, very low cost. And that, you know, we are the world's leader in storage and have a unique position with our battery supply agreement that's all domestic and is de risked from a FIAC standpoint. And then I think about nuclear, you know, the part, the agreement that we announced today not only around Dwayne Arnold, but you know, the collaboration around advanced nuclear nationwide, all the opportunities we have around Point beach, we have around Seabrook and then greenfield advanced nuclear build out and then gas fired generation as well. Having been the leader in gas fire generation development over the last 20 years, leveraging the development platform that we have today, the 20 gigawatt pipeline that's in place, and then you combine all those capabilities into serving the large load customer which really as I said before, creates a unique position for us when you combine all the capabilities we have around generation, all the capabilities we have around electric transmission and gas pipelines and also our customer supply business. Because remember, whenever you're trying to secure a load interconnect, you've got to have a retail energy capability to get that load interconnect from load serving entities. The customer supply business plays a very important role. You have to be able to do many, many things to be able to enable a large load transaction. And you have to have the balance sheet and you have to have the team and we also have a 50 state footprint to be able to execute against that which is really, really unique given that we've been doing that for 20 years. And then the recontracting opportunity that I mentioned before, we have a massive long power position that becomes open as we get to the end of this decade. And then all the artificial intelligence things that we're doing to really help drive efficiencies and cost savings across the business and revenue opportunities for us as well. So you put all those pieces together. We are in really good shape post 2030. Perfect. Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. Then just one last quick one for me too. As we kind of think about now, obviously, just topic du jour with Dwayne Arnold and the potential restart. How are you guys seeing the nuclear fuel supply chain kind of shape up as we kind of think about it going forward? Just knowing that Russia's going to be coming offline from an enriched uranium capacity in 2028? Yes. I mean, I think the US government's very focused on that. The industry is very focused on that, and we've been very disciplined in terms of how we secure our long term fuel going forward. So I feel good about where we stand. We baked into our numbers that we gave you on Google, you know, our position around, you know, where nuclear fuel sits today.

John Ketchum - Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer - (01:00:06)

Great.

Nick Amiguchi - (01:00:07)

Thanks, guys.

OPERATOR - (01:00:13)

Thank you. This concludes our question and answer session. The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect. Thank you.