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NRG Energy, Inc. is a large American energy company, dual-headquartered in West Windsor Township, New Jersey,and Houston, Texas. It was formerly the wholesale arm of Xcel Energy, and was spun off in bankruptcy in 2004.

In late 2005, NRG Energy bought Texas-based Texas Genco from a group of private equity firms for roughly $5.9 billion. When the state of Texas deregulated the electricity market, the former Houston Lighting & Power (HL&P) was split into several companies. In 2003 HL&P was split into Reliant Energy, Texas Genco, and CenterPoint Energy.

In May 2009, NRG entered this market by acquiring the retail operations of Reliant Energy. NRG's retail service serves 1.6 million customers in Texas. The retail operations continue to operate under the Reliant Energy name while the remainder of the former Reliant Energy became RRI Energy. Reliant, along with TXU Energy, has experienced a declining share of the Texas retail electricity market due to provider diversification and new market entrants.

Following the acquisition of Reliant, NRG extended its retail footprint with the acquisition of Green Mountain Energy in November 2010. In doing so, NRG also became the largest retailer of green power in the nation, providing all of its Green Mountain and many of its Reliant customers with energy derived from 100% renewable resources. Through its acquisition of Dominion Retail in 2014, NRG added the Cirro Energy brand to its Texas retail electric portfolio.

NRG Energy completed its acquisition of GenOn Energy in December 2012 for $1.7 billion in stock and cash. The GenOn name was retired in the merger, but the combined company retained GenOn's Houston headquarters to coordinate operations.

In August 2013, NRG acquired Energy Curtailment Specialists, a Buffalo, New York based Demand response company.

In September 2014, NRG acquired Goal Zero, an manufacturer of personal solar power products.

Naming rights

NRG Energy holds the naming rights to the NRG Park campus in Houston, Texas, home to the NRG Astrodome, NRG Stadium, NRG Arena and NRG Center.

On March 12, 2014, NRG Energy announced that they would be re-branding Reliant Park to replace "Reliant" on all signages to "NRG".

After the GenOn merger, NRG has 47,000 MW of total generation capacity, enough to power approximately 40 million homes. Its nearly 100 power plants are located in 18 states in the Northeast, Chicago area, Gulf Coast, Southwest, Nevada, and California. Generation facilities include mostly fossil fuel power plants powered by natural gas, oil, and coal; plus four wind farms (in Texas) and six solar farms (in California, Arizona, and New Mexico). NRG also has a 44% ownership stake in the South Texas Nuclear Generating Station and a 37.5% stake in a coal power plant in Gladstone, Queensland, Australia. Some facilities use cogeneration and the company also owns 28MW of solar distributed generation.

NRG's Retail Power services provide electricity services to more than 2 million homes and businesses, mostly in Arizona and the Northeast.

Beginning in 2009, NRG began a major initiative to become the leading green energy producer in the United States and started investing very large amounts of money in clean energy projects. They include onshore and offshore wind power, solar thermal energy, photovoltaic, and distributed solar power facilities, and repowering of some of their traditional coal plants with biomass.

In late 2010, NRG made news by launching the "eVgo" network, the first completely private public car charging station network for electric power vehicles.

NRG continued the trend of leading in the green power market in 2011 by becoming the largest green power retailer in New York City.[citation needed] The company also signed a two-year agreement beginning in January 2011 to provide 100% renewable energy for the Empire State Building.

Assemblywoman Aravella Simotas has been chair of a coalition to support the utility in their plan to replace its "decades-old, dirty" power plant in Astoria with a newer generator. The company wants to replace 31 generators with new ones that will increase the megawatts of power while reducing emissions. Emissions would be reduced because the new plants will use natural gas, while the current generators run primarily on oil.

In September 2014, NRG named Huntington Beach, CA-based advertising agency INNOCEAN as its agency of record. The first campaign was designed to raise consumer awareness of NRG's role in clean energy, particularly solar power.