NextEra earnings up 10%, FPL up 11%

Energy giant’s CFO says continued investment, including solar plants, led to FPL’s higher profits.

JUNO BEACH — NextEra Energy Inc. (NYSE: NEE, $133.02) on Friday reported first-quarter 2017 profits of $820 million, or $1.75 per share, on an adjusted basis, up 10 percent compared with $732 million, or $1.59 per share, in the first quarter of 2016.

NextEra Energy ’s princ ipal rate-regulated electric utility subsidiary, Florida Power & Light Co., saw earnings rise more than 11 percent.

It reported first-quarter 2017 profits of $445 million, or 95 cents per share, compared with $393 million, or 85 cents per share, for the prior-year quarter.

During a conference call with analysts on Friday, John Ketchum, NextEra’s executive vice president and chief financial officer, said FPL’s results were primarily driven by continued investment in the business.

Projects underway or in the works i ncl ude a 1 ,75 0 - megawatt Cl e a n Energy C e nte r i n Okeechobee, a modernized natural gas plant in Dania Beach and the addition of close to 2,100 megawatts of solar plants over the next few years.

By s e l e c t i n g o p t i mal s i t e s on FPL’s system, the company expects the solar projects to produce millions of dollars in net lifetime savings for customers and to continue to diversify FPL’s fuel mix, Ketchum said.

Natural gas is used to produce about 70 percent of FPL’s electricity.

D u r i n g t h e q u a r t e r, F P L’s average number of customers i n c re a s e d by a pprox i mat e l y 65,000, or 1.3 percent.

Electricity sales for the quarter fell 1.2 percent as usage per customer was down 1.4 percent because of weather.

In response to a question about Project Accelerate, the company’s cost-cutting initiative, NextEra CEO Jim Robo said the project will save hundreds of millions of dollars.

“We will give more details on it at the June investor conference, but it affects all of our businesses. I mean we’re reimagining ... NextEra Energy Resources and FPL are finding smarter ways to leverage technology and other approaches to each of our individual business lines,” Robo said.

K e t c h u m a n d R o b o a l s o addressed Texas regulators’ rejection April 13 of NextEra’s $18.7 billion proposal to buy Oncor Energy Delivery Co. from parent firm Energy Future Holdings. The commission found that the proposed transaction was not in the public interest.

The company plans to file a motion for a rehearing with the Public Utilit y Commission of Texas.

“Obviously we were di sap - pointed in the decision,” Robo said. “We think we would be a terrific owner of Oncor for the state and for its customers. I think we would add enormous value to customers in Texas from how we would operate the utility.

“We can’t pay $18.7 billion for a utility that we can’t run. And we can’t control the board and we can’t have access to dividends and it’s just bad business to do anything other than that,” Robo said.

Robo said NextEra’s earnings expectation of 6 to 8 percent through 2020 don’t include Oncor, and mergers and acquisitions are not needed to achieve that.

“We don’t have to do anything on the M&A front. We really do love our st and-alone organic growth prospects,” Robo said.

NextEra Energy Resources, the competitive energy busi - ness of NextEra Energy, reported first-quarter earnings of $357 million, or 76 cents per share, compared with $306 million, or 66 cents per share, for the first quarter of 2016.