Key takeaways from the report, “An Inflection Point for the U.S. Power Sector” published by the Environmental Defense Fund

  • Clean power growth slows while fossil power rebounds: Clean power continues to account for the largest share of planned U.S. power sector development, the “pipeline” of future capacity, but growth has slowed from its 2024 peak. Meanwhile, fossil power announcements have increased since 2022, suggesting electric utilities and energy developers are recalibrating their priorities in response to evolving federal policy and projected rapid load growth, relying on methods to evaluate resource adequacy that favor traditional dispatchable resources. Based on capacity factors, planned natural gas project capacity is now comparable to that for solar and wind.
  • New fossil power is poised for a sharp uptick: If currently planned projects come online as expected, new fossil capacity additions could reach a market share not seen since the early 2010s. However, new fossil projects still face near- and medium-term challenges to deployment, including gas turbine supply constraints and uncertainty surrounding projected large load demand from data centers.
  • Fossil power cancellations decline while clean power cancellations grow: Fossil power project cancellations dropped in 2024 and have remained low through the first half of 2026. Of the 51.6 gigawatts (GW) of fossil capacity planned at the start of 2025, developers only canceled 1.5 GW (2.9 percent) by year-end. Clean power moved in the opposite direction: cancellations have increased since 2022, with 13.1 GW of 281.7 GW (4.7 percent) canceled in 2025.
  • New clean and fossil power capacity is geographically concentrated: Approximately half of planned U.S. clean power capacity is concentrated in Texas, California, and Arizona, while roughly half of planned fossil fuel capacity is in Texas, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania. Texas leads each category due to its projected load growth, resource availability, size, and regulatory environment.
  • Coal retirement rate slows and federal policy adds uncertainty: Coal capacity continues to decline, but slowly—less than one GW retired in 2025 (the lowest since 2009). Utilities and plant owners have cited forecasted demand growth, perceived reliability concerns, and federal actions to keep some plants available, which may add greater uncertainty to the timing of future coal plant retirements.
  • More fossil power could raise costs for consumers: When both upfront and operating costs are considered, solar and wind power projects have the lowest lifetime costs of all power sources. A more fossil fuel-reliant buildout would potentially lead to increased customer costs for electricity, relative to a clean-power pathway.

Access the full report here