NextEra Energy flies to Cedar Rapids days after announcing $67B Dominion merger

NextEra Energy's Embraer Praetor 600 (N31MW) touched down at The Eastern Iowa Airport in Cedar Rapids at 22:55 UTC on May 20, 2026, after a 2-hour 13-minute flight from Richmond International Airport. The trip comes just two days after NextEra Energy announced its blockbuster all-stock acquisition of Dominion Energy, a deal valued at nearly $67 billion that will create the world's largest regulated electric utility.

Cedar Rapids sits at the center of a burgeoning data-center corridor in the Midwest, and Nextra Energy is aggressively positioning itself to power the AI boom. As CEO John Ketchum told Fortune earlier this spring, scale is the only way to serve hyperscalers affordably — and Iowa, with its wind energy, nuclear plants, and available land, is a prime location for the 130-gigawatt construction backlog the merged company will command [fortune.com]. The visit suggests Ketchum is already scouting new opportunities while the merger awaits regulatory approval.

The flight is the first Iowa trip tracked for NextEra Energy in recent weeks. The company's jets have been shuttling between Florida, New York, and Virginia, with multiple Richmond trips during the merger's final negotiations. The Cedar Rapids stop — a departure from the usual pattern — indicates a strategic pivot toward the heartland's data-center boom.