NextEra needs about a repeat of last year's fourth quarter to reach the top of its range

NextEra Energy owns Florida Power & Light, its regulated utility, and NextEra Energy Resources, which develops and runs power plants and batteries across the country. In the September 2026 quarter, adjusted earnings per share, the measure the company guides on and which leaves out gains and losses on certain hedges among other items, rose to $1.24 from $1.13 a year earlier.

That leaves little to do this year. Adjusted earnings per share stand at $3.47 after nine months, and the company kept its 2026 range and its aim for the high end of it. Reaching the top, $4.02, takes $0.55 a share in the fourth quarter, calculated from the reported figures; by the same arithmetic, NextEra earned about $0.54 in the same quarter a year ago. Management said that high-end target already allows for weaker wind output at its farms as El Niño sets in.

So the question for a holder is less this year's number than what produced the quarter's growth, and whether it repeats. The Florida utility and the development arm each added six cents a share, while the corporate segment subtracted one. Within Energy Resources, the chief financial officer said the plants already running contributed five cents more, mainly because wind returned to about its long-term average after a weak year-earlier quarter. A weather comparison like that lifts one year and then drops out; the gains that build on each other come from new plants and from the capital Florida Power & Light puts to work.

That makes the utility's investment pace the figure to follow. Regulatory capital employed, roughly the asset base on which Florida regulators let the utility earn a return, grew 9.2% from a year earlier, against 8% when the company reported the same quarter of 2025. The growth rate rose through the past year and eased only slightly last quarter. Because the utility earns a regulated return on that base, faster growth in it is the most direct support for the company's earnings plan.

The second source of growth is newer and slower to pay. NextEra Energy Resources has signed definitive agreements for three federal hubs, large power campuses with two in Texas and one in Pennsylvania, totalling about 16.5 GW; in July it described 9.5 GW of gas projects for such sites, with agreements still being negotiated. It will develop, build and run the hubs for fees, without putting in its own capital. Chief executive John Ketchum said that should yield about half the per-share earnings that owning the plants would bring over their first two decades of operation.

The fees arrive late. Chief financial officer Michael Dunne said payments in the early years would be "relatively modest" because they are tied to development work, and Ketchum said the campuses could start drawing significant power as early as 2028. The hubs therefore do little for this year or next, and their value to a holder rests on the projects reaching operation.

Taken together, this year's earnings are largely in hand, and the company's target of 8%+ annual growth in adjusted earnings per share rests for now on the Florida utility's spending and Energy Resources' new plants, with hub fees building later. The pending combination with Dominion Energy, which the companies say would raise that growth rate, reaches its first state decisions soon, with final orders in Virginia and South Carolina expected in January 2027.