NextEra Energy (NEE) to buy Dominion Energy (D)

NextEra Energy will buy Dominion Energy in an all-stock deal that unites two leading players in the race to meet growing electricity demand from data centers that run artificial intelligence applications.

Dominion is the utility responsible for powering the world’s largest data center market in Northern Virginia.

NextEra is the biggest renewable energy developer in the United States. The Florida-headquartered power company is also the largest utility in the S&P 500 at a market cap of more than $190 billion.

The deal will create the largest regulated electric utility in the world, the companies said Monday. NextEra shareholders will own 74.5% of the combined company while Dominion investors will own 25.5%.

They will operate under NextEra’s name and trade under its ticker symbol on the New York Stock Exchange. Shares of Dominion surged more than 15% in pre-market trading. NextEra’s stock was mostly flat.

“Electricity demand is rising faster than it has in decades,” NextEra CEO John Ketchum said in a statement. “We are bringing NextEra Energy and Dominion Energy together because scale matters more than ever.”

Though a major developer of renewables, NextEra has also ramped up its investment in natural gas during the second Trump administration.

And it is playing a leading role in the push to expand nuclear energy in the U.S. NextEra announced a deal with Alphabet’s Google last year to reopen the mothballed Duane Arnold nuclear plant in Iowa.

It plans to build more than 30 data center hubs across the U.S. to help meet the demand from AI.

NextEra and Dominion together will be the world leader in renewable energy and battery storage, the U.S. leader in natural gas generation and take second place in nuclear power, the companies said.

Ketchum will continue as CEO of the combined company. Dominion CEO Robert Blue will serve as CEO of its regulated utilities business and as a member of the board.