About Joseph Dominguez
Joseph Dominguez, president and CEO of Constellation Energy, discussed the company's first-quarter 2026 results, reporting an adjusted operating earnings beat of $2.74 per share on revenue of $11.1 billion. He described the company's long-term outlook as "compelling," citing a base earnings growth rate exceeding 20% through 2029, supported by the nuclear production tax credit, long-term contracts, and the commercial and industrial retail platform. Dominguez noted that Constellation expects to generate $10.5 to $12 billion in free cash flow before growth in 2028-2029, a roughly 45% increase over the prior two-year period. He also highlighted that the company repurchased shares, calling the buyback "an intentional statement" of management's confidence in the business.
On data center demand, Dominguez stated that projected 2026 spending by hyperscalers is "nearly 75% higher than last year" and continues to be revised upward, though he cautioned that the actual load coming onto the system is less than the "over 400,000 megs" in interconnection queues. He emphasized that customers "want to get their data centers online as quickly as they can" and need regulatory clarity. Discussing Pennsylvania, Dominguez said the state has been "very supportive" of competitive market solutions. Regarding the Calpine acquisition, he said it would add at least $2 per share in EPS and $2 billion in free cash flow starting the following year, and argued that new combined-cycle gas turbine costs have roughly tripled in the last decade, making nuclear "the winner" on cost, reliability, and sustainability. He also pointed to federal government pledges of $80 billion toward new nuclear capacity as supportive of the industry.
Source: AI-verified profile updated from Joseph Dominguez's recent appearances.
Browse all interviews →
✨ AI-enhanced transcript with speaker attribution
I
Interviewer0:00
So let's start with the news of the day. You came out this morning with a statement in favor of some new regulations that the Environmental Protection Agency is developing to further restrict emissions from fossil fuel plants, and you also criticized the Edison Energy Institute, an industry group, for its opposition to this move. So what would be the impact of these regulations, and would they provide Constellation with a competitive advantage since you folks are a leading producer already of carbon-free energy?
J
Joseph Dominguez0:36
You know, the main impact of the regulations is to provide a means for fossil plants — and I think we all believe that natural gas is going to be part of this energy transition — but it for the first time begins to put pressure on existing fossil plants to reduce their emissions. And it gives them a couple of different pathways to do that. One is to blend natural gas with clean hydrogen, and when you do that, you reduce emissions for that percentage that you're using hydrogen as the fuel. The other means of doing it is to actually sequester the emissions. We feel confident that EPA is on the right path because we have really been at the forefront of developing some of the technologies that will allow existing natural gas-fired generation to comply with these rules. As an example, Dave, most recently we set an industry record. We took a machine that was 15 years old — not state-of-the-art natural gas-fired technology — and with minor retrofits, we were able to blend a combination of nearly 40% hydrogen with 60% natural gas, and that would easily meet the new EPA requirements that are set in 2032. So right now in 2023, we demonstrated that the technology that EPA relies upon for its new standards that will be in effect in the early part of the next decade, so we're confident we're going to be able to do that. Likewise, we've developed technology. A company called Net Power just became public; it's a technology we've been working on for over a decade. What it would do is burn natural gas in a new form of combustion called the Allam cycle, and what gets emitted is pure CO2 that could easily be injected into the ground. One of the things that the IRA did is create economic incentives for pipelines and the capability to back CO2 into the ground. So we think EPA's going makes a great deal of sense from a technology standpoint. As I said, we think it's demonstrated technology even today. So that would be, I think, necessary in order to achieve the reductions that we're looking for to deal with the climate crisis and to do so in a manner that preserves electric reliability. And while I haven't seen the Edison Institute's comments, they have been reported in several weeks, and if they really are going in the direction of saying, 'Hey, we can't do any of this stuff,' which is what it sounds like, boy, that'd be disappointing for the leading industry group in America to do that.
