While the combination is drawing some resistance, NextEra Energy and Dominion Energy are projecting that their proposed $67 billion merger, announced in May, will be final by fall 2027.
The merger effort took a new twist Thursday when Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) used an opinion piece in the Washington Post to announce she will formally intervene in the case. Spanberger said she has “serious questions” about how the merger will affect affordability. “And as governor, I intend to get answers and be a voice for Virginians in the process.”
Over the past two weeks, both companies discussed the merger in their respective second quarter earnings calls. John Ketchum, NextEra chairman, president and CEO, said that the two utility holding companies filed applications for the merger approval with federal and state agencies in July. On the federal level, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission must give its blessing.
According to Dominion’s July 31 second quarter earnings presentation, the utilities expect both the regulatory review processes with federal and state agencies to begin in the third quarter of this year and conclude somewhere between the third and fourth quarter of 2027.
The Virginia State Corporation Commission, which received the application on July 15, has begun its six-month statutory process and is slated to have its first hearing about the merger in November. Dominion is headquartered in Richmond, Va.
Though Dominion and NextEra are gearing up for the regulatory review process, the two utilities are facing some criticism over the proposed deal.
In Virginia, Clean Virginia claimed that the merger application is incomplete. Clean Virginia is urging the Virginia State Corporation Commission to force NextEra and Dominion to resubmit a more detailed application.
Clean Virginia filed a 17-page petition with the state agency, saying it found nine incomplete areas in the merger application.
“The statute gives the commission up to 180 days to evaluate the largest utility merger in U.S. history,” Brennan Gilmore, Executive Director of Clean Virginia, said in a July 20 press release. “But that timeline collapses if the application is incomplete on day one. Every day consumed by discovery gaps and unanswered questions is a day stolen from the commission’s ability to protect Virginia’s customers. The joint petitioners cannot be allowed to start the clock running on an incomplete filing.”
A separate non-profit organization, the American Economics Liberties Project, said the proposed merger is forming a “massive utility monopoly” that is being sold to Americans on the basis of the demand of artificial intelligence (AI), which “may never materialize”, the organization said in a June 29 statement.
Marissa Paslick Gillett, senior fellow at American Economic Liberties Project, said customers would be getting a raw deal and warned that federal and state regulators should take a hard look at it. Gillett was once the chair of Connecticut’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority.
“NextEra and Dominion are selling regulators on a vision of permanent AI-driven demand growth that may never arrive, or stick,” Gillett said in the statement.
“But the infrastructure costs necessary to support their vision will be locked in for decades. Customers who have no ability to choose another provider will pay for years of capital expansion and rate hikes, for buildout that is incentivized by the broken utility business model,” Gillett finished.
Once the merger is completed, Dominion and NextEra are expected to have 11% annual growth through 2032, NextEra said in its fiscal 2026-second quarter earnings press release.
If the transaction is approved, NextEra’s shareholders will have a 74.5% interest in the merged company, while Dominion shareholders will own a 25.5% interest. Additionally, the merged company will then own the second-largest operating fleet in the United States, just behind Constellation Energy.
“This combination is about putting greater scale, financial strength and operational expertise behind Dominion Energy’s local operating companies so they can meet growing power demand while keeping bills affordable and service reliable,” Ketchum said in a release.
Ketchum continued, “Together, we will be better positioned to support jobs and economic development in four fast-growing states by investing in the all-of-the-above energy infrastructure needed to power growth and strengthen American competitiveness.”