Dividend payers such as NextEra Energy (NEE -1.62%) can be powerful wealth builders. They're attractive for a bunch of reasons. For starters, companies typically wait until they're generating fairly reliable income before committing to a dividend payout. And once they start paying one, they're generally loath to reduce it or suspend it.

With dividend-paying shares of healthy and growing companies, you can look forward to share price appreciation, dividend payouts, and dividend increases over time. It's a win-win-win!

Image source: Getty Images.

Check out the impressive stats below:

Data source: Ned Davis Research and Hartford Funds.

If you're considering NextEra Energy, you might be wondering how many shares of it you'll need to own to generate annual income of, say, $1,000. Here's how to figure that out: Look up the stock online and you'll likely see that it's paying $0.52 per quarter, or $2.06 per year, per share. Its dividend yield was recently a solid 3%. (It's also expecting to increase its payouts by around 10% annually for the coming few years.)

Take your desired total dividend income of $1,000 and divide it by $2.06. You'll arrive at 486, which is the number of shares of NextEra Energy you'll need in order to receive $1,000 in dividends -- a sum that will likely increase over time. At recent share prices, that amount will cost you a little more than $34,000.

NextEra Energy has been a solid performer for its shareholders for many years, with average annual gains of around 12% over the past decade. The renewable energy stock, with a recent market value near $150 billion, is the largest producer of wind and solar energy in the world -- and is a major presence in battery storage, too.

If you're looking for growing dividend income and you're bullish on renewable energy, give NextEra Energy a closer look.