Nextera Energy Inc

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The following article was published by The Richmond Times-Dispatch on September 14, 2026.

Revised NextEra bid for Dominion would boost bill credits, add 600 Richmond jobs

Residential ratepayers would see credits on their power bills for twice as long as first proposed under a series of revisions to NextEra Energy's $67 billion bid to acquire Dominion Energy.

The extension would come from redirecting credits to residential customers that would otherwise go to data centers.

Shareholders of the merged companies would also fund a $100 million addition to Dominion's Energy Share program, which helps people struggling to pay energy bills.

In addition, NextEra is proposing to create 600 new jobs, including positions in a $500 million-plus office tower to be built on the vacant lot next to Dominion's Canal Street headquarters.

NextEra will maintain the current number of Dominion jobs in Virginia for 5 years.

"This is in response to what we've heard, listening to policymakers and stakeholders ... We heard about affordability, about jobs, about clean energy," John W. Ketchum, NextEra's chairman, president, and chief executive, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch in a telephone interview Sunday.

Ketchum said the bill credits for residential customers would continue for four years instead of the two years that the companies proposed in their merger agreement this spring.

In addition to shifting credits from data centers to residential customers, NextEra would boost the funds available for Virginia bill credits from $1.78 billion to $1.87 billion, he said.

"We're fully committed to ensuring that data centers pay their fair share," Ketchum said.

NextEra's Florida utility has done so with a rate structure similar to Dominion's program, requiring large collateral payments and long-term contracts for set payments from data centers.

Ketchum said NextEra shares Gov. Abigail Spanberger's belief that data centers should pay the full cost of service. He said he agreed with her successful argument that the State Corporation Commission should shift more of the costs of high voltage transmission lines to data centers.

Separately, in a filing last week with the SCC, Amazon Data Services, one of the biggest data center operators in Virginia with multi-billion-dollar plans to expand here, said it would reallocate any bill credits it could receive in order to make other Virginians' bills more affordable.

The SCC is reviewing the merger to ensure it does not harm Virginia ratepayers and has the power to approve, reject or demand changes.

The $100 million shareholders will add to Dominion's Energy Share program would come on top of the General Assembly's directive this year to expand funding of that program by between $156 million and $204 million over the next 12 years.

Longer term, Ketchum said the merged companies would have the buying and financing power to bring big savings on their costs, savings that would be reflected in customers' bills.

Being able to operate at a large scale pays off, Ketchum said.

"I'd say look at what we've done at Florida Power and Light, where electric bills have declined 20% between 2006 and now in real terms," as adjusted for inflation, he said.

On the jobs front, NextEra would employ 600 people in Virginia.

These new positions would include individuals involved in NextEra's current work on small modular reactors, battery storage, grid modernization and cybersecurity.

The cost of the new tower will fall on shareholders, not Virginia ratepayers.

Any work these NextEra employees do for the company's giant Florida utility or other energy companies would be billed to those firms, and it is only the jobs they do on Dominion's Virginia system that would ultimately be part of ratepayers' bills, after review by the SCC.

The companies expect suppliers will move another 400 jobs to Virginia.

Shareholders will also fund a new $100 million workforce program aimed at training people to fill what the companies expect will be a growing number of positions.

"We're building a clean energy ecosystem in Virginia,"Ketchum said."This is not the usual merger,"where the objective is usually to save money by cutting jobs, he said.

A- 2"This is a combination of companies that are growing and that intend to be market leaders," he said.

NextEra and Dominion have also proposed a $1 billion, five-year commitment to buy equipment, materials and supplies from Virginia businesses.

The two firms also plan to launch an annual energy conference in Virginia, on the same scale as Houston's annual CERAWeek, which this year brought more than 2,470 firms, 2,200 top energy company executives, 588 government officials, including 67 ministers of energy, to the city.

The conference would focus on the electricity sector, and the two companies say they believe that, for electricity, Richmond could become the same kind of business center that Houston is for oil and gas.

But some things won't change if the SCC and regulators in South and North Carolina, along with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, approve the merger, Ketchum said.

Dominion's Virginia utility will still be subject to SCC review of its rates and plans for power plants and the wires and equipment that carry electricity, Ketchum said.

The commission's every-two-year review of base rates, as well as its reviews of surcharges for new facilities, will still focus on whether Dominion is making enough, too much or too little money to ensure reliable electric service.

NextEra is committed to expanding renewable energy and battery storage, as required by the Virginia Clean Economy Act and recent legislation on battery storage, Ketchum said. NextEra has the nation's largest fleet of solar, wind and battery facilities, he said.

SCC oversight over the Virginia utility's financial relations to its parent company remains in place to ensure that ratepayers aren't covering costs that should fall on shareholders or on NextEra's other businesses.

State law banning electric utilities from disconnecting customers when temperatures fall below 32 degrees or rise above 92 degrees will remain in effect.

"We want to put customers first ... We want to be sure we're putting our best foot forward," Ketchum said.

Richmond mayor Danny Avula said the revised terms were the kinds of commitments the city had been looking for.

"Dominion/NextEra are proposing to invest big in Richmond, a new downtown tower, a commitment to preserve jobs and add new jobs here, large investments in the workforce development pipeline, and an even greater rebate commitment to the residential ratepayers of Virginia,"he said.