America is adding record amounts of clean power, but the renewable energy industry’s leading trade group warns that growth could fall sharply from 2028 if federal restrictions continue. That matters to the AI build-out too: rising electricity demand, driven largely by AI, is making the fight over new power capacity harder to ignore.
Watch Desk analysis
What happened
Jason Grumet, chief executive of the American Clean Power Association, told Axios that the effects of policy changes could become visible in 2028 or 2029. The trade group says agencies have taken at least 17 actions restricting development, including halting offshore wind leasing and adding political reviews to permits. Federal courts have blocked several moves, Axios reports.
The timing matters. Projects generally need to begin construction by 4 July 2026, or come online before 2028, to qualify for federal tax credits whose expiry was brought forward in 2025. Senate negotiators are expected to unveil a bipartisan permitting deal, but a final vote is not expected before the midterm elections. Grumet called the talks encouraging; passage by the end of the year, he said, is essential. Read Axios’s report.
Why it matters
Wind and solar account for nearly two-thirds of the new power capacity developers plan to add to the US grid this year, according to the US Energy Information Administration figures cited by Axios. The first half of 2026 also set a record for new wind, solar and battery capacity, the trade group says. Those figures describe a current boom, not a guarantee that it will last.
The tension reaches beyond the renewables industry. Electricity demand is climbing, driven largely by AI, while the companies building data centres need dependable power. A slowdown in new capacity would sharpen choices over what gets built, where it comes from and how quickly it can reach the grid.
Our read
The warning is a trade group’s assessment, not a settled forecast. But the dates, permitting disputes and pending Senate talks make it more than a distant what-if. The useful test for any deal will be whether it speeds projects across technologies while leaving legitimate review in place. “Permitting reform” is a tidy phrase; the projects that actually get through will be the less tidy proof.
What to watch
- Whether Senate negotiators publish a deal and what it says about wind project approvals.
- Whether Congress acts before the end of the year, as Grumet urges.
- How permitting delays and the tax-credit deadlines affect planned capacity after 2026.
- How policymakers address rising electricity demand, including demand from AI data centres.
Discussion spark: Should the US speed up permits for new power projects to meet rising demand, even if that means changing how wind projects are reviewed, or should tighter scrutiny take priority?
Sources and evidence
- Renewables boom faces a Trump-era cliff (30 September 2026, 09:15 UTC)
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