Florida-based NextEra Energy has put in a bid to buy Oncor Electric, a Texas company valued at up to $18 billion, according to a Bloomberg news story Monday.

Meanwhile, a decision is expected any day on NextEra’s $4.3 billion deal to buy Hawaiian Electric Industries.

“They are one of the premier electric utilities out there, and they show a desire for growing through acquisition,” Paul Patterson, a New York-based analyst at Glenrock Associates LLC, said of NextEra in a telephone interview with Bloomberg. “The risk-adjusted rate of return is quite attractive compared with the cost of financing the transaction in many cases.”

Analysts suspect NextEra may be looking to forget the “uphill battle in Hawaii” and instead buy Oncor Electric Delivery, Bloomberg reported in May.

Hawaii Gov. David Ige’s administration and two dozen intervening parties in the state Public Utilities Commission docket have opposed the merger, questioning its benefits to Hawaii and whether NextEra is committed to the state’s goal of 100 percent renewable energy.

Read the latest Bloomberg story here, and past Civil Beat coverage of the NextEra deal with Hawaiian Electric here.