NextEra Energy Cuts CO2 Emissions - Analyst Blog

Electric utility NextEra Energy Inc. (NEE) through significant investment in its producing facilities has considerably lowered the emission of green house gases. NextEra’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emission rate declined 33% to 657 pounds per megawatt-hour in 2009 from 985 pounds per megawatt-hour in 2000. The present emission rate of the company is around 50% below the U.S. electric power sector average of 1,297 pounds per megawatt-hour.

At the end of 2009, NextEra Energy was the country’s leading producer of wind energy, with more than 7,500 megawatts of installed capacity, and the largest operator of solar power with 335 megawatts in service. The company has invested around $18 billion in the last five years to create the clean-energy production fleet, which not only reduced emissions, but created more than 60,000 direct and indirect jobs in the process.

The major peers of the company are Progress Energy Inc. (PGN), Southern Company (SO) and TECO Energy Inc. (TE). On a competitive landscape the net margins of NextEra Energy fared better than its peers in the trailing twelve months.

NextEra’s better margins over its peers are driven partly by the high efficiency of its power generation fleet. NextEra Energy’s fossil-fuel powered plants require an average of 7,965 British Thermal Units (BTUs) to produce one kilowatt-hour of electricity, compared with an industry average of 10,139 BTUs.

The adjusted earnings of NextEra at the end of second-quarter 2010 were $1.11 per share compared with 99 cents in the year-ago comparable period. The Zacks Consensus Estimates for third quarter fiscal 2010, fiscal year 2010 and fiscal year 2011 are $1.43 per share, $4.37 per share and $4.54 per share, respectively.

NextEra Energy currently retains a Zacks #3 Rank (short-term Hold rating). We also maintain a Neutral rating on the stock.

Based in Juno Beach, Florida, NextEra Energy through its subsidiaries engages in the generation, transmission, distribution and sale of electric energy in the United States and Canada.