A new report by Cleanview tabulates power project cancellations in 2025, with nearly 2000 projects cancelled this year. The report cites 1,891 power project cancellations amounting to 266 GW in generation capacity (as always, I hate to use capacity as a metric due to the low capacity factors of wind and solar compared to fossil and nuclear). 93% of those cancellations were clean energy projects, which include wind, solar, and battery projects. The report also notes that public opposition against projects, as well as against data centers and transmission lines, is a big factor as well.
Seeking Alpha reports that
the failure to build transmission lines has grown, despite an immense need for
more power transmission. I found the following statement from the Cleanview report shocking:
“The failure to build transmission lines has led to high
interconnection costs, the report said, as high-voltage transmission
construction plummeted from 4,000 miles in 2013 to 322 miles in 2024; Louisiana
and Missouri, where interconnection costs now exceed $900,000 per MW, lost a
combined 26 GW of capacity in 2025.”
They also note the
significant effects of “battery cannibalization,” strongly affecting battery
project profitability in high deployment areas like Texas and California. In
addition, they note that Trump tariffs have raised the cost of battery
deployment considerably.
"Battery cannibalization" - where growing
capacity drives down the prices batteries earn - has made it harder to build
profitable battery projects; Clearview noted Texas battery revenues plunged 70%
from $192/kW in 2023 to $55/kW in 2024, and California battery revenues fell
from $103/kW in 2022 to $53/kW in 2024, while President Trump's tariffs have
raised the cost of batteries by 56%-69%.”
They note that 26.5 GW of
cancellations are due to Trump’s direct cancellation of offshore wind projects.
The Trump administration has also said that growing power demand will require
100 GW of new capacity, with much of that expected to come from natural gas.
Unfortunately, higher prices for power consumers seem unavoidable. This annoys
me!
The report summarizes:
“Electricity demand is growing faster than it has in
decades in the United States. Data centers, manufacturing reshoring, and
electrification are driving massive growth in power consumption. But at the
exact moment America needs more electricity generation, the country's
infrastructure developers are canceling projects at an alarming rate.”
A further summary within the
executive summary of the report is given below.
The last section of the
summary above does show that a significant number of cancellations do come from
interconnection queue cleanup to remove speculative projects in an attempt to
streamline and improve the interconnection process and remove unnecessary
projects. The cleanups have been successful at removing speculative projects,
so that can be seen as a success. This will help the regional power
interconnections to focus more on viable projects and should, theoretically,
speed up timelines to full project development and completion.
Public opposition is cited as
a powerful force, affecting projects. The report notes that in Virginia, a hub
of data center development with a fair solar endowment, more solar projects are
being denied than approved. Public opposition in the state is high.
“The severity of local opposition extends beyond
individual permit denials. At least 10 Virginia counties have enacted outright
bans or severe restrictions on solar, with Mecklenburg County—the state's
ninth-largest county—passing an ordinance in April 2025 that removed
utility-scale solar as an allowed land use entirely.”
Indiana, and my state, Ohio,
are also leading opposition to clean energy projects.
Energy writer Robert Bryce
has tracked public opposition with his database of rejections for clean energy
projects. He is now documenting the growing rate of AI data center rejections
due to land-use conflicts. Opposition to data centers also includes significant
and legitimate concerns about water use. I plan to write about this soon, as
different water use issues are cropping up where data centers are in operation
and where they are being built. He notes that the reasons for opposition to
data centers are similar to those for wind and solar, aside from water use
issues. These include “property values, water usage, electricity costs, and
deep distrust of big business in general and Big Tech in particular.” He
also notes that Big Tech plans to spend $375 billion this year and $500 billion
next year on data center buildout, which means these issues will continue and
probably grow a bit more.
The report also notes that
the lack of power transmission buildout is leading to higher interconnection
costs, which is also killing projects.
“The consequences for renewable energy developers have
been severe. In MISO, the South and Midwest's grid operator, the average
interconnection cost for canceled projects in the latest study cycle was
$753,116 per MW—roughly 50% of a typical solar or wind project's total capital
expenditure.”
In MISO, the highest
interconnection costs correlate to the most cancellations.
The following statement from
the report reflects the problem that Cleanview CEO Michael Thomas notes is
underinvestment in transmission, which creates bottlenecks. This is a problem
in several regions, including PJM.
“Decades of underinvestment in transmission
infrastructure have created a massive bottleneck. Developers can't afford to
build projects when grid connection costs equal or exceed the cost of the
generation equipment itself. Until transmission buildout accelerates,
interconnection costs will continue forcing economically viable projects out of
the queue, threatening America's ability to meet growing electricity demand.”
Returning to the battery
cannibalization problem, he notes that it has led to significant revenue
decline and is responsible for 30% of battery project cancellations:
“Ancillary service prices fell from $21 per
megawatt-hour in 2023 to $5/MWh in 2024 and are currently at $3/MWh. Analysts
at McKinsey estimate that battery cannibalization—where growing battery
capacity drives down peak hour prices—is responsible for at least 30% of the
observed revenue decline. Profitability among battery operators now depends
more on strategic site selection and operational timing rather than fleet size,
with most major operators posting year-to-date profitability below 2.2%.”
It is also noted that tariffs
have led to “dramatically higher construction costs.” The Trump
administration’s Foreign Entity of Concern (FEOC) regulations, set to go into
effect in 2026, are expected to further increase project costs as well as
complexity.
“Projects that penciled at $192/kW in revenue with
$100/kWh battery costs in 2023 now face $55/kW in revenue with $130/kWh costs—a
fundamental shift that has forced developers to cancel 79 GW of planned
capacity nationwide.”
The offshore wind cuts, some
to projects well underway, have created lots of problems for wind developers
and for the states that host them.
Thomas cites policy
incoherence as a barrier to solving these problems that need to be solved.
“The current trajectory is unsustainable. America is
adding unprecedented electricity demand while canceling the generation capacity
needed to meet it. Counties are approving gigawatt-scale data centers while
rejecting solar projects—sometimes on the same night. States are courting
hyperscalers while blocking the energy projects that would power them. The
federal government is promoting "energy dominance" while halting
construction and imposing prohibitive tariffs. This policy incoherence threatens
grid reliability, consumer affordability, and America's competitiveness in the
global AI race.”
References:
Developers
have canceled nearly 2,000 power projects this year – report. Seeking Alpha.
December 13, 2025. Developers
have canceled nearly 2,000 power projects this year - report
Report:
Developers Have Cancelled 1,891 Power Projects in 2025: An analysis of US power
projects that have been cancelled in 2025. Michael Thomas. Cleanview. Developers Have
Cancelled 1,891 Power Projects in 2025
The
Data Center Backlash Is Global. Robert Bryce. Substack. December 10, 2025. The
Data Center Backlash Is Global - Robert Bryce
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