Exelon beats quarterly profit estimates as data center customers swell
Adds company executive quotes, data center details
Aug 1 (Reuters) -Exelon EXC.O beat Wall Street estimates for second-quarter profit on Thursday, helped by higher electricity rates and rising demand as thegiant electric utility grows its data center customer base.
U.S. power demand is expected to reach record highs this year, driven by the proliferation of datacenters across the country amid an artificial intelligence boom.
Exelon's operating revenue rose 11.3% to $5.36 billion during the second quarter, as a heatwave swept across much of the U.S. in June and propelled cooling demand.
Earnings for its Commonwealth Edison unit, the largest electric utility in Illinois, rose 8.4% to $270 million.
The utility is in the engineering phase for more than 5 gigawatts of data center capacity, where developers of the giant computer warehouses have paid the utility to start to engineer their projects, ComEd CEO Gil Quiniones said on a conference call. Some of those data center customers have taken further steps by making deposits for ComEd to order transmission and breakers.
The utility has another 13 GW of speculative data center demand in Illinois.
"They are not yet in engineering but they are knocking on our doors, making inquiries, very interested in coming to our jurisdiction," said Quiniones said.
Higher demand and elevated electricity rates helped the company to offset a 13.1% rise in interest expenses in the second quarter. Higher interest rates in the U.S. have lifted expenses for utility firms that typically spend heavily on improving existing infrastructure.
The Chicago-based company posted adjusted operating earnings of 47 cents per share compared with the average analyst estimate of 40 cents, according to LSEG data.
Reporting by Sourasis Bose in Bengaluru and Laila Kearney in New York; Editing by Vijay Kishore, Shinjini Ganguli and Marguerita Choy
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