U.S. electric utility giant Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK) posted consensus-beating earnings for the third quarter as rates and retail sales volumes increased.
Duke Energy on Friday reported adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $1.81 for the third quarter, up by 11% from the same period a year earlier.
The earnings also beat the analyst consensus estimate of $1.75 per share.
The higher earnings for the third quarter “were driven by the implementation of new rates and riders, along with higher retail sales volumes,” said Duke Energy, whose electric utilities serve 8.6 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky, and collectively own 55,100 megawatts (MW) of energy capacity.
“As load growth materializes across our jurisdictions, we are expecting our new five-year capital plan to be between $95 and $105 billion when we refresh the plan in February, increasing the largest capital plan in the industry,” Duke Energy president and CEO Harry Sideris said in a statement.
In August, Duke Energy agreed to sell an indirect 19.7% stake in its Florida business to infrastructure investor Brookfield for $6 billion in cash, part of which will fund Duke’s increased capital spending plan for the next five years.
A total of $2 billion of the proceeds from the transaction will fund Duke Energy’s increased $87 billion, current five-year capital plan, while the remaining $4 billion will be used to displace holding company debt, the firm said.
In recent months, U.S. power utilities have announced billions of U.S. dollars in capital plans until the end of the decade and are getting a lot of requests from Big Tech for new power capacity in certain areas as the surge in AI and the expansion of data centers drive demand.
Electric utilities in the United States are set to spend $212.1 billion in capex this year alone, which would be a 22.3% annual increase, as they race to secure new electricity supply for data centers, the Financial Times has reported, citing data from Jefferies.
By Michael Kern for Oilprice.com
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