The energy sector can be a great place for income-seeking investors. The industry tends to generate lots of cash flow, allowing companies to pay attractive dividends.

Three great energy dividend stocks to consider buying this month are Enterprise Products Partners (EPD 0.48%), Brookfield Infrastructure (BIPC 0.32%) (BIP -0.47%), and NextEra Energy (NEE 0.54%). Here's why this trio of energy stocks look like great buys heading into 2023.

A well-oiled income-producing machine

Enterprise Products Partners offers investors a big-time income stream. The master limited partnership (MLP) currently yields 7.8%. That's several times higher than the 1.6% dividend yield on the S&P 500. 

The pipeline company can easily afford that massive payout. Enterprise Products Partners generates very stable cash flow, backed by long-term, fixed-rate contracts or government-regulated rate structures. Meanwhile, it only pays about 54% of its steady cash flow to support its distribution.

The MLP also has a top-notch balance sheet. It has investment-grade credit backed by a low 3.1 times leverage ratio, below the company's 3.25 times to 3.5 times target range.

Those features give it lots of financial flexibility to continue expanding its operations. Enterprise Products Partners currently has $5.5 billion of expansion projects under construction, which should help grow its cash flow over the next few years. That should give Enterprise Products Partners the fuel to continue growing its payout. The MLP has increased its distribution for the last 24 consecutive years.

Another big year ahead

Brookfield Infrastructure also offers a high-yielding payout (currently 3.3%) that it has steadily grown. (It delivered its 13th straight year of increasing its payout in 2022.) The diversified infrastructure company should have no problem continuing to grow its payout in 2023 and beyond.

The company is currently on track to grow its funds from operations (FFO) per share by 20% this year. Half will be organic growth, and the other half will come from its asset-rotation program.

Brookfield is benefiting from higher commodity prices, inflation, expansion projects, and several recent acquisitions. Those growth drivers should power another 12%-15% increase in its FFO per share next year.

The company should have plenty of fuel to continue growing at a healthy rate beyond 2023. Its utilities, energy midstream operations, transportation businesses, and data infrastructure platforms should continue benefiting from inflation, elevated commodity prices, a growing global economy, and expansion projects. Brookfield believes those catalysts will help power 5% to 9% annual dividend growth over the long term.

Powerful dividend growth ahead

NextEra Energy has been a dividend growth machine over the years. The clean-energy-focused utility has increased its payout for more than 25 straight years. It has grown its dividend payment at a nearly 10% compound annual rate since 2006.

While NextEra Energy doesn't have quite as high a dividend yield as Enterprise or Brookfield -- it's currently 2% -- the company expects to deliver dividend growth of around 10% annually through at least 2024. Its extensive backlog of renewables and other energy infrastructure-development projects is powering that forecast.

The company expects to deploy $85 billion to $95 billion of capital through 2025 to grow its platform. That should support up to 10% annual growth in its adjusted earnings per share during that time frame.

NextEra's powerful growth forecast should enable the utility to continue growing shareholder value. It has a long history of outperforming the S&P 500 and other utilities, which seems likely to continue in the coming years.

Energize your passive income for 2023

Enterprise Products Partners, Brookfield Infrastructure, and NextEra Energy offer investors above-average dividend yields. Those already sizable payments should head even higher in 2023. That makes these energy stocks stand out as top options for income-seeking investors to buy this December to boost their passive income in the coming year.