Nearly 2,000 U.S. Power Projects Nixed This Year Despite Data Center Energy Crunch
Even as a data center building boom sends power demand skyrocketing and strains grids across the country, energy developers have canceled 1,891 new power generation projects in 2025, according to a report published last week by energy transition tracker Cleanview.
The canceled projects represent a combined 266 gigawatts of generation capacity — the equivalent of roughly a quarter of the country's existing generation capacity.
Clean energy projects accounted for 93% of these cancellations, according to Cleanview. Developers nixed 86 GW of planned solar generation this year, as well as nearly 80 GW of battery storage projects and 54 GW of wind. Only 5 GW of gas generation was canceled in 2025.
While a reduced pipeline of new power generation could pose challenges for a data center sector desperate for power amid Big Tech’s artificial intelligence arms race, data center energy demand has also played a role in driving the surge of cancellations over the past 12 months, according to Cleanview.
Cleanview reports that the markets where data center development is driving up electricity demand the fastest have seen energy projects killed by local opposition at a particularly high rate.
In Ohio, which has emerged as one of the fastest-growing markets for hyperscale data center development, state officials have blocked more clean energy projects than in any other state.
Virginia, by far the world’s largest data center market, has seen the cancellation of 6.7 GW of potential generation capacity. In the fast-growing Indiana market, 44% of proposed data center projects are in counties that restrict renewable energy development.
Surging electricity demand from data centers has also driven U.S. grid operators to clean up the interconnection queues, reevaluating backlogged generation projects waiting for grid connections. With power demand suddenly on the rise after years of stagnation, it has become increasingly important for utilities and grid operators to accurately project how much power will be coming online in the coming years and eliminate speculative projects from the queues.
As grid operators have implemented studies and reforms to separate the wheat from the chaff in their interconnection queues, the result has been the elimination of a significant number of generation projects, according to Cleanview. The SouthWest Power Pool saw 27 GW canceled this summer after an interconnection queue study. The queues for grid operators Midcontinent Independent System Operator and PJM Interconnection have similarly been culled as a result of these processes.
Beyond data centers, Cleanview identified the Trump administration’s policies around wind power as a factor in the cancellation of gigawatts of planned capacity. The White House ended a key tax credit used by wind and solar developers earlier this year, and it has worked to dismantle offshore wind development through a number of policy changes. As a result, more than 27 GW of offshore wind projects have been canceled in New England, New York and California.
Cleanview also points to widespread failures to build new transmission lines and worsening economics around battery storage as forces that have contributed to the spike in abandoned energy projects.
