Permitting delays pushed by the Trump administration threaten to derail 92 gigawatts of clean power, even as electricity demand from AI data centers skyrockets.
Already, permitting changes and federal funding withdrawals have led to the cancellation of 7 gigawatts of generating capacity on federal land in 2025, according to a new study from consulting firm Wood Mackenzie. The additional scrutiny could cancel another 12 gigawatts on federal land and 80 gigawatts on private property.
The federal challenges affect more than $121 billion in investment in the energy space, the report noted.
Demand for electricity has been climbing in recent years after two decades of zero growth, driven in part by the expansion of data centers to feed the AI boom. Data centers are expected to grow in number and scale in the coming decade, according to market forecasters at BloombergNEF, which in turn pushes up their electricity use nearly threefold by 2035.
Meanwhile, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is requiring grid operators to offer a fast lane for grid connections, though it has done little to address the bottleneck in new generating capacity, which is close to crisis proportions in some regions. In the largest grid in the U.S., which also hosts the most data centers, grid operators spent the last four years preventing new generating sources from connecting, effectively freezing supply at a time of rising demand. No wonder the general public is unhappy, and tech companies are forging their own paths by building their own power plants on-site.
Where the U.S. has been able to add new power plants, renewables have been the largest contributor. Solar, batteries, and wind represented nearly 90% of the record 53 GW of new generating capacity added in 2025.
The increased permitting friction stems from an August 2025 order from Doug Burgum, U.S. Secretary of the Interior, which sought to “rein in environmentally damaging wind and solar projects.”
While wind and solar have been the main targets, energy storage projects have been canceled, too, the Wood Mackenzie report found. Most of the permitting woes are concentrated in Oregon, Alabama, Maine, Minnesota, and Montana.
Solar projects sited on or near private wetlands appear to be most at risk, while wind farms have been scrutinized under airspace regulations. It’s unclear how solar projects will be affected in the coming years given the Trump administration’s recent decision to lift protections for 80% of U.S. wetlands.
Burgum’s order is a marked shift from his previous tenure as governor of North Dakota, during which he oversaw an expansion of wind power within the state and set a target for it to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2030. As recently as 2024, he was boasting about North Dakota’s rich wind resources, which produced a third of the state’s electricity in 2022.
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.
