Brookfield Renewable (NYSE: BEPC) (BEP 1.48%) continues to prove it's more than just an income stock. The renewable energy giant delivered record results last year, growing its funds from operations (FFO) by 10% per share. That gave it the power to increase its high-yielding distribution (currently over 5.5%) by another 5%, its 14th straight year of growing the payout at or above that level.
The top renewable energy dividend stock expects to continue generating high-powered growth in 2025 and beyond. Here's a look at what's powering its robust growth.
NYSE: BEPC
Key Data Points
A record year across the board
Last year "was another record year for our business," stated Brookfield Renewable CEO Connor Teskey in the company's fourth-quarter earnings report. He noted that the company delivered 10% FFO-per-share growth and developed about 7 gigawatts (GW) of new renewable energy capacity. In addition, the company and its partners deployed or committed $12.5 billion of capital ($1.8 billion net to its balance sheet) into its leading renewable energy platforms.
Brookfield Renewable generated a record $1.2 billion, or $1.83 per share, of FFO last year. It finished 2024 strong, growing its FFO per share by 21% in the fourth quarter. The company benefited from having inflation-linked cash flows, its organic expansion initiatives (including completing 7 GWs of new development projects), and acquisitions.
Brookfield and its partners deployed or committed a record $12.5 billion into new investments last year, including closing its investments in Infinium (a leading eFuels manufacturer), Orsted's 3.5 GWs of operating offshore wind farms in the U.K., and the first phase of acquiring leading renewables developer Neoen, all of which closed in December.
The company's existing assets performed well last year. The hydroelectric portfolio generated $511 million in FFO, helped by higher results in the second half due to the strength of its Colombian assets. The company also noted that it saw strong performance from its investment in nuclear services provider Westinghouse as nuclear power becomes increasingly important to meet the world's growing need for clean energy.
Powerful growth still ahead
Brookfield's record capital deployment last year provides it with lots of momentum in 2025 and beyond. Given the December closing of its investments in Neoen and Orsted's offshore wind farms, those transactions will help drive growth throughout 2025, especially as it closes the purchase of the remaining interest in Neoen from outside shareholders.
Meanwhile, its investment in Infinium will start contributing to its results once its production facility in Texas comes online. Brookfield's CEO noted that this "investment provides us with significant growth optionality to deploy more capital into the scaling eFuels market, as well as build the renewables projects to support these activities." The company also acquired Leap Green in India last year, which will continue to contribute to its growth in 2025.
Brookfield expects to continue ramping up its development activities. It's on track to reach an annual run rate of commissioning 10 GWs of projects annually by 2027. The company is seeing increasing demand from large corporations, especially technology companies, for buying clean power, evidenced by its record-smashing 10.5 GW framework agreement with Microsoft to develop renewables in the 2026-2030 time frame. The company has a staggering 200 GWs of projects in its development pipeline.
Brookfield is also actively recycling capital to finance its growth initiatives. The company and its partners agreed to sell $2.8 billion of assets last year ($1 billion net to its balance sheet) at very strong returns (2.5 times their invested capital). It expects to continue selling assets in 2025 to lock in returns and provide it with more capital to deploy into higher-returning investment opportunities.
"The outlook for clean power is stronger than ever, with accelerating demand driven by corporate customers on the back of accelerating data center development and broader electrification, which has only been further enhanced by the new U.S. administration's effort to drive investment," commented CEO Teskey in the fourth-quarter earnings report.
Brookfield is in a strong position to capitalize on this environment thanks to its massive development pipeline and robust liquidity, which it's enhancing through its capital recycling strategy. It has ample capacity to deploy into development projects and continue making accretive acquisitions and investments as opportunities arise. "We continue to target 10%-plus FFO-per-unit growth going forward, and today have more visibility on achieving this target than ever before," stated the CEO in the earnings release.
High-powered total return potential
Brookfield Renewable continues to offer investors the best of both worlds. It pays a high-yielding dividend it intends to grow by 5% to 9% per year over the long term. The company can easily support that growth rate, given its expectations that it can grow its FFO per share by more than 10% annually for the foreseeable future.
Those two factors put the company in a strong position to produce total annualized returns in the mid-teens in the coming years, making it an excellent long-term investment.
