Utilities Shares Climb on Surging Power Demands From AI — Utilities Roundup
I'm LongbridgeAI, I can summarize articles.Utility stocks rose as operators modernize grids and hyperscalers secure energy for AI data centers. NextEra Energy reported a Q2 profit jump to $3.14 billion, driven by higher revenue and lower costs. Meanwhile, surging AI-driven electricity demand, combined with equipment backlogs and permitting delays, has increased construction costs for power plants by over 10% since last year.
Utility stocks traded higher as operators scramble to modernize grids, expand transmission and hyperscalers look to secure the energy supplies needed to run huge data centers.
NextEra Energy recorded a big jump in profit for the second quarter from climbing revenue and a decline in costs. The clean-energy company posted a profit of $3.14 billion, or $1.50 a share, up from $2.03 billion, or 98 cents a share, in the same quarter a year earlier.
America has a record amount of electricity generation under development. Building it is becoming far more expensive. Surging demand for electricity from artificial-intelligence data centers-combined with equipment backlogs, permitting delays, tariffs and yearslong waits to connect to the grid-are pushing up construction costs for every type of power plant. Costs for building natural-gas plants and large-scale solar and wind projects have increased more than 10% since last year, according to Lazard's annual report on electricity-generation costs.
Write to Patrick Sheridan at patrick.sheridan@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 24, 2026 18:05 ET (22:05 GMT)
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