NRG Energy agreed to sell six natural gas plants totalling 4.9 GW to LS Power for $4 billion in cash, the company said in a release on 9 November alongside third-quarter results. That is about $816 per kilowatt, by our arithmetic. NRG says the price implies 8.0 times 2027 EV to adjusted EBITDA.
NRG says its previously disclosed 1.2 GW Bring Your Own Power (BYOP) data center project remains on track, and that after the sale it will own and operate 20 GW: 10 GW in ERCOT, Texas’s grid, and 10 GW in PJM.
Business Pill · Who Pays for the Grid
An evergreen Business Engineer explainer on how grid costs are shared. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss NRG or LS Power.
The key insight: NRG Energy agreed to sell six gas plants totalling 4.9 GW to LS Power for $4 billion in cash, about $816 per kilowatt by our arithmetic, keeping 20 GW in Texas and PJM and a 1.2 GW data-center project it says remains on track.
The six plants are Ravenswood in New York’s NYISO market, Ocean State Power and Wallingford in ISO New England, and Jack County, Johnson County and R.W. Miller in ERCOT. The sale is targeted to close in the second quarter of 2027, subject to Hart-Scott-Rodino, FERC and New York State Public Service Commission approvals.
The results release says the sale “retains the entire PJM portfolio and CPower acquired by the Company in January 2026”.
$NRG Energy announces $4B asset sale, plans $2B in additional debt reduction at closing, followed by $1B in debt reduction, $1B in buybacks and an 8% dividend hike in 2027.
Capacity figures are from NRG Energy’s asset-sale and third-quarter releases of 9 November 2026. The price per kilowatt is our arithmetic; the sale is subject to regulatory approvals.
Where the $4 Billion Goes
NRG says proceeds support $3 billion of share repurchases across 2026 and 2027, including an incremental $1 billion expected to begin before the end of the fourth quarter. On closing it plans an additional $2 billion of debt reduction, bringing planned 2027 debt reduction to $3 billion. The remaining $1 billion is for contracted growth investments or more debt reduction.
The 2027 base plan also includes an 8% increase in the annual dividend to $2.05 a share. NRG says it will provide updated 2027 guidance after the sale closes.
The Quarter
Third-quarter GAAP net income was $561 million, up $409 million, and adjusted net income was $983 million, up $446 million, on an $808 million rise in adjusted EBITDA to $2,013 million. Adjusted EPS was $4.68 against $2.78. The release credits contributions from the portfolio acquired from LS Power, higher Eastern capacity prices and higher Texas margins.
NRG reaffirmed 2026 adjusted EPS guidance of $7.90 to $9.90 and initiated 2027 guidance of $8.05 to $10.05, which the release says does not reflect the sale.
The Data-Center Project
The results release says NRG’s “BYOP strategy brings new, dispatchable generation alongside load growth to support reliability and affordability consistent with the approach policymakers and communities have called for”. The asset-sale release adds that a further 1.1 GW is expected to be operational in ERCOT by 2028 through its two remaining Texas Energy Fund projects.
As we read the two releases, NRG is turning megawatts outside PJM and its retained ERCOT fleet into buybacks and debt reduction, while keeping its 20 GW Texas and PJM fleet and the 1.2 GW BYOP project it says remains on track.
As we read the price, $816 per kilowatt for operating plants sits well below the $2 million to $2.5 million per megawatt that Reuters cited for new turbines; operating plants come with their own age, contracts and markets, so the two are not like-for-like.
Robert Gaudette, president and CEO of NRG, in the asset-sale release
“We are unlocking substantial value from a select group of assets, while maintaining a robust generation footprint in PJM and ERCOT that provides reliable, affordable power for our customers,”
Three Implications
FOR DATA-CENTER DEVELOPERS NRG says its 1.2 GW Bring Your Own Power project remains on track; the releases do not name a customer or site.
FOR SHAREHOLDERS NRG plans $3 billion of buybacks across 2026 and 2027, $3 billion of 2027 debt reduction and an 8% dividend increase to $2.05 a share, per its release.
FOR POWER-PLANT BUYERS The release says the price represents an implied 2027 valuation multiple of 8.0x EV/adjusted EBITDA; Constellation agreed the same day to pay $715 million for a 609 MW Rhode Island plant.
The framework argues: “Companies that solve the power equation will dominate the AI era; those that don’t will watch their chips sit idle.”
As we read it, NRG’s Bring Your Own Power model, pairing new dispatchable generation with new load, is one version of solving that equation. The framework predates this sale and does not discuss NRG.
What Is Not Established
The releases do not name the BYOP project’s customer or site, and do not say whether any of the six plants came from NRG’s earlier acquisition from LS Power. The $4 billion is subject to working-capital and other closing adjustments and to regulatory approval.
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NRG is selling 4.9 GW of gas plants in New York, New England and Texas to LS Power for $4 billion, about $816 per kilowatt by our arithmetic, to fund buybacks and debt reduction, while keeping 20 GW in Texas and PJM and a 1.2 GW data-center project it says remains on track.
A note on sourcing. The sale, results, guidance, capital plan and quotations are from NRG Energy’s two releases of 9 November 2026; the Rhode Island deal is from Constellation’s release of the same day. The price per kilowatt is our arithmetic. Turbine costs are as reported by Reuters and covered in our earlier piece.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
