NextEra Reports Negative Impact on Gexa from August Weather

Gexa Energy earnings were lower by about $21 million for the three months ended September 30, 2011, versus the year-ago quarter, due to the extreme hot weather in Texas during the month of August, parent NextEra Energy said Friday.

The negative impact at Gexa more than offset a gain of about $8 million at NextEra's Texas gas-fired assets due to the August weather.

During an earnings call, executives said that NextEra has made changes in its customer supply business to avoid such negative impacts in ERCOT in the future, but did not elaborate on what these changes were.

Overall, NextEra's customer supply segment, including Gexa and the wholesale full requirements business, was down by about $25 million versus the year-ago quarter. Apart from the negative weather impact at Gexa, results were was also negatively impacted by lower full requirements results and the absence of a gain on a power supply contract realized in 2010.

NextEra's proprietary trading business contribution for the quarter was down by about $29 million versus the year-ago.

NextEra reported that, in order align the cost structure of its gas trading operations with reduced expectations for the business going forward, it will be relocating the gas trading and scheduling operations from Houston back to its corporate headquarters in Florida in the first quarter of 2012. "In addition to reducing costs, bringing these operations back to Florida will allow us to better integrate the teams and improve leverage across the overall business," executives said.