Bloom Energy's $6 billion backlog, 360x P/E: AI power stocks ranked by risk

The article frames the electricity demand surge as a multi-decade trend: demand grew 10% between 2005 and 2025, and is projected to grow 60% between 2025 and 2045, with AI expected to be an important part of that step change alongside technologies like electric cars. That backdrop is what ties together three otherwise very different companies.

Bloom Energy makes hydrogen fuel cells and is helping bridge the gap as the grid struggles with AI demand, but it has yet to post a full-year profit and its stock has already run up more than 200% over the past 12 months, pushing its P/E to 360x. Brookfield Renewable offers a diversified clean energy portfolio — hydroelectric, solar, wind, storage, and a stake in Westinghouse — with a 5.6% yield, though it charges market rates without the monopoly of a regulated utility. NextEra Energy combines a large regulated utility with contract solar and wind, and its proposed acquisition of Dominion Energy is essentially a bet on data center demand growth.

The article closes with a warning: AI excitement has pushed market valuations to levels last seen before the dot-com bubble, and that bubble's burst was painful. On that reading, the three names differ chiefly in how directly they are exposed to AI and how much valuation risk investors are absorbing — with Bloom Energy most tied to AI, NextEra Energy most diversified, and Brookfield Renewable in between, though the still-uncompleted Dominion acquisition is a risk factor for NextEra.