The clean energy industry is ending this week with a mix of record commitments, mounting project cancellations, and intensifying pressure from data center demand.
In the United States, NextEra Energy Resources and Meta just expanded their partnership to approximately 2.5 gigawatts of new clean energy contracts, signed through 11 power purchase agreements and two energy storage agreements.[4][2] About 2.1 gigawatts will come from solar projects in the ERCOT, SPP, and MISO markets, plus 190 megawatts of solar and 168 megawatts of battery storage in New Mexico to support Meta’s data centers.[4] These projects are scheduled to enter service between 2026 and 2028 and are expected to create roughly 2,440 construction jobs.[2]
At the same time, the U.S. project pipeline is under strain. New data from analytics platform Cleanview show that since the start of 2025 nearly 2,000 power projects, representing 266 gigawatts of capacity, have been canceled, with the overwhelming majority in clean energy.[7] Canceled capacity includes about 86 gigawatts of utility scale solar, 79 gigawatts of storage, and 54 gigawatts of wind, highlighting growing challenges around permitting, grid interconnection, financing costs, and local opposition compared with earlier years when the pipeline was expanding more steadily.[7]
Cities continue to push ahead. Los Angeles has just announced full divestment from coal in its power supply, a milestone in its plan to reach 100 percent clean energy by 2035.[1] With the completion of the Eland solar plus storage project, the city’s utility reports surpassing 60 percent clean energy in 2025 and is preparing to integrate green hydrogen at the Intermountain Power Project starting in 2026.[1]
In Europe, regulators are scaling support for net zero technologies, including new auctions for hydrogen production and industrial process heat decarbonization, and earmarking billions of euros in emissions trading revenues for clean transition investments.[3] This deepens policy backing compared with earlier rounds of funding but also exposes delays, such as Germany’s risk of missing the start date for implementing the latest EU Renewable Energy Directive.[3]
Across these developments, a clear pattern is emerging: rising demand from data centers and industrial decarbonization is driving very large long term clean energy deals, even as near term project cancellations and regulatory bottlenecks complicate delivery and increase the urgency of grid, permitting, and technology innovation.
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This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI