NRG Energy is selling six of its gas-fired power stations to LS Power. The two companies announced the deal on 9 November, the same day NRG reported its third-quarter results: about 4.9 GW in Texas, New York, Rhode Island and Connecticut, for $4 billion according to POWER magazine. LS Power expects to close in 2027, once the usual conditions and regulatory approvals are met.
The Six Stations
The list in LS Power's release is a mix of old and newer plant, and only part of it is combined cycle:
- Ravenswood, New York, 2,050 MW - combined cycle, simple cycle and steam turbine units
- Jack County, Texas, 1,280 MW combined cycle
- R.W. Miller, Texas, 538 MW, simple cycle and steam turbine
- Ocean State Power, Rhode Island, 478 MW combined cycle
- Wallingford, Connecticut, 350 MW simple cycle
- Johnson County, Texas, 283 MW combined cycle
LS Power says the stations sit in three regional transmission organizations. Together with the roughly 4.4 GW it is buying from Constellation in a deal not yet closed, its gas fleet would grow from 2.2 GW to 11.5 GW, and its whole portfolio, hydro, solar, wind and storage included, to more than 19 GW. Chief executive Paul Segal's argument is simple: firm, dispatchable capacity is what the grid needs, and plants that are already built, permitted and connected deliver it now rather than in some later year.
Why NRG Lets Them Go
NRG presents the sale as a capital decision. POWER reports that the money supports its 2027 capital allocation plan, next to $3 billion of share buybacks over 2026 and 2027, cuts debt and frees capital for uses with higher returns. After the sale NRG expects to own and run about 20 GW, split evenly between ERCOT and PJM, and to add 1.1 GW more in ERCOT by 2028 from its two remaining Texas Energy Fund projects. Chief executive Robert Gaudette said the company keeps a large generation base in those two markets. In the quarter itself NRG earned $561 million net, against $152 million a year earlier. Assets moving the other way is nothing new here: POWER recalls that NRG bought power stations from LS Power last year in a $12 billion transaction.
Neither the LS Power release nor the POWER report speaks of data centers. The words used are demand growth at historic levels, which in Texas and the Northeast today means much the same thing. We covered a smaller deal of the same kind, gas cogeneration plants changing hands, in our ECP report.
Old Units, New Expectations
Buying a running fleet instead of ordering turbines is the same calculation many data center developers make with engines: the machine that is already on its foundation beats the one with a delivery slot years out. The price of that shortcut is age. Steam units and older simple-cycle machines were built for a duty the new owner may want to change, with more starts, longer runs through summer peaks or a capacity contract with tighter availability terms. Before such plants are sold on with promises of more running hours, someone has to look honestly at the maintenance history, the hot-section intervals and the state of the auxiliaries, cooling included, that were sized for the old running pattern. Plant types of this kind are described on our power plants page.
Sources: LS Power (press release), POWER
