Exelon bid for major Texas power producer NRG
ExelonÂ’s unsolicited, all-stock bid comes after Princeton, New Jersey-based NRG lost half of its market value in two months. The offer, valued at 37 percent more than NRGÂ’s Oct. 17 closing price, would create the biggest U.S. power producer.
Buying NRG, the second-biggest power producer in Texas, would expand Chicago-based ExelonÂ’s sales outside its Illinois and Pennsylvania operating bases, including a nuclear plant stake southwest of Houston. NRG, Exelon and other power producers have proposed 24 new reactors to help add needed generation capacity without increasing greenhouse-gas emissions.
"Exelon couldnÂ’t build the plants for the same price it would buy NRG for," said Nathan Judge, an analyst at Atlantic Equities in London who rates Exelon shares "underweight" and owns none. "It also gives them access to a bigger balance sheet to fund things like new nuclear plants."
Exelon, already the largest U.S. producer of nuclear power, benefits from a cost advantage because according to an estimate by Natixis Bleichroeder Inc., reactors generate electricity for about 70 percent less than the most efficient gas-fueled plants.
Two new reactors of the size NRG has proposed may cost $21.6 billion, according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Related News
Coal demand dropped in Europe over winter despite energy crisis
PARIS - The EU burned less coal this winter during the energy crisis than in previous years, according to an analysis, quashing fears that consumption of the most polluting fossil fuel would soar as countries scrambled to find substitutes for lost supplies of Russian gas.
The study from energy think-tank Ember shows that between October 2022 and March 2023 coal generation fell 27 terawatt hours, or almost 11 per cent year on year, while gas generation fell 38 terawatt hours, as consumers cut electricity consumption in response to soaring prices.
Renewable energy supplies also rose, with combined wind, solar and hydroelectric output…
