NRG Energy (NRG) will increase its quarterly dividend by 8.3 percent to 32.5 cents per share in 2021. Last year the energy company announced a stunning 900.0 percent increase to $0.30 per share, coming after a 79.3 percent dividend cut to just 3 cents quarterly back in 2016.

The next dividend is payable on February 16, 2021 to stockholders of record as of February 1, 2021. A new annual rate of $1.30 per share yields 3.1% at a stock price of $41.53.

In its press release announcing this dividend hike, dated January 21, 2021 the company states that this increase is in-line with the company’s previously announced annual dividend growth rate target of 7-9% per share.

If we include this new dividendhike by NRG Energy just announced the company will pay an estimated $317 million in dividends to shareholders annually. The average dividend growth rate in the last five years is no less than 61.0 percent annually, thanks to the huge hike announced last year.

NRG Energy, Inc. is an energy company. The company’s core businesses include retail electricity and natural gas for residential, industrial and commercial consumers, including personal power solutions and Business Solutions, which includes C&I customers and other distributed and reliability products, and wholesale conventional generation primarily to support the retail business. NRG was incorporated as a Delaware corporation on May 29, 1992.