John Ketchum: I think kind of all of the above, Steve. Our opportunity is significant around data centers is a point, first point that I’ll make and I think if you look historically on what we’ve been able to do with data center customers, I don’t think anybody’s had better results than we have. If you look at just our gigawatts in operation, we have 3.5 gigawatts in operation today. We have another 3, close to 3.5 gigawatts in our backlog with technology providers. We really understand their business. We really understand what it is they need. And part of that is because we spent a lot of time with them, we do business with all the, what I would call the top five hyperscalers in this country, also doing business increasingly with some of the developers of data centers as well.
And we’ve owned data centers, and so we understand how they work, how they operate, what the CapEx and OpEx is, and how it’s driven by energy and power, and what the right locations are for them. We’ve developed tools to address them. And so what do we see? We see about a 15% CAGR through the end of the decade for data center demand. I think data center developers are really focused more than anything on three things. They want low cost energy. They want to be able to say that they’ve accomplished additionality from a decarbonization standpoint, which requires a new facility to be built, not an existing facility. And third piece is it’s got to be in the right location, and it’s got to have speed to market. And, there’s obviously been a lot of talk about renewables and nuclear, and I do want to, I’m a little more of a skeptic, about nukes, and let me explain why that is.
They’re already in the ground. You can’t move them. And if you look at the nuclear fleet, there’s only 15 nuclear plants in this country that are west of the Mississippi. And when you think about the 15 that are west of the Mississippi, most of them already rate regulated or long-term contracted. So that really is just creating maybe an east coast opportunity for those that aren’t rate regulated and that aren’t contracted. I think that’s a small subset of nuclear units that could perhaps satisfy east coast demand. But in our discussions with data center providers, getting access to cloud capacity for Silicon Valley, Santa Clara in particular, is critical. I mean, we can all count on one or two fingers how many nuclear plants are located in those regions.
Not many. And you just can’t move a nuclear plant. And so the thing we bring to the table is a lot of flexibility and speed to market. We can put the renewable project exactly where it needs to be. And SMRs, I hear a lot of talk about SMRs. SMRs are still, a decade to 15 years away. Not only do you have, nine OEMs that are really struggling to access capital. If we pass a sanctions bill against Russia, a nuclear fuel that’s going to limit conversion and enrichment capacity in the U.S. for sourcing of nuclear fuel for these SMRs, which also is going to require a real step up in technology to get them done, and you’re also dealing with undercapitalized fuel providers. I’m a real skeptic on SMRs really coming into the picture to satisfy data center demand anytime in the near future.
And so when you put all of that together, I think the right answer is renewables. In our discussions with data center developers and providers, their first focus is renewables. And I hear a lot about the reliability concerns and, well, what do you do when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine and the four hour battery is done enough? We can overbuild the battery. We can also help work with them to design a clean energy solution where if they do have a grid by, we can green it up with wrecks, from our green desk. We have technology and tools, which we showcased back in March, where we can identify partners in the country that not only the best resource areas, but also the best fiber connectivity, the best water resource. And those are the areas that we’re locking up.
And we have the sites and we have the relationships. And so I don’t think anybody’s better positioned to capitalize on data center demand than NextEra’s. And I’m very excited about what the future opportunities hold for us there. But the other thing I would say, and we’ll talk a lot more about this at our investor conference in June, is this electricity demand is real. We’ve been in a period of static demand for decades, and the demand is not only coming from data centers, it’s coming from decoupling from China, creating more domestic manufacturing around industry, around chip manufacturing. Oil and gas industry continues to electrify. We continue to, even beyond data centers, see significant electric demand. We have the tools. We have the sites.
We have the relationships, and we are chasing those opportunities. And look, we’re coming off our second best origination quarter ever. I think the results speak for themselves.
Steve Fleishman: Great. Thank you.
Operator: The next question comes from Shahriar Pourreza with Guggenheim Partners. Please go ahead.
Shahriar Pourreza: Hey, good morning, guys.
John Ketchum: Good morning Shahriar.
Shahriar Pourreza: Good morning. Just maybe starting off on NEP, sort of given the continued pressure from capital markets and kind of the benchmark rates, are you sort of advancing any longer-term resolution plans for the CEPFs? I mean, have existing holders and maybe other infrastructure players showed any interest in transactions to fund and maybe simplify the cap structure for longer-term growth? What could that look like? And is this sort of an Analyst Day disclosure? Thanks.
John Ketchum: Yes, sure. Thanks for the question. A few comments that I’ll make on it. One is we have talked about private capital raise potentially being a solution to address back in CEPFs for NEP. Obviously, there’s a lot of interest in that, just given NextEra’s stature in the market, NextEra Energy Partner stature in the market. And so those discussions continue to move forward. We don’t have anything to say about them right now. We may not have anything to say about them at the Analyst Day. I wouldn’t expect us to make a whole lot of comments at the Analyst Day about NEP, when we do have something to say about NEP. As these discussions continue to evolve, we will address them at that point.
