REPORT: Q3 Market Report Shows Strong Quarter of Deployment, but Signs Point to Long-Term Slowdown Risk

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REPORT: Q3 Market Report Shows Strong Quarter of Deployment, but Signs Point to Long-Term Slowdown Risk

WASHINGTON, D.C. December 4, 2025 - The American Clean Power Association (ACP) released its Clean Power Quarterly Market Report today, showing U.S. clean energy developers delivered a strong third quarter, adding a record 11.7 gigawatts (GW) of new utility-scale solar, wind, and energy storage capacity. That is enough capacity to power over 1.6 million homes - representing a 14% jump over the same period a year ago. Battery storage alone surpassed its previous Q3 record with 4.7 GW installed. This strong year was expected given the strong momentum and policy tailwinds supporting the industry over the last several years. Despite strong near-term numbers, the report highlights how lingering policy and regulatory uncertainty put the pace of future growth at risk.

"The third quarter's record results mask an unstable policy environment that is threatening our ability to meet our future energy needs," said ACP CEO Jason Grumet. "The policy chaos at the federal level has seeped into every part of project timelines, stalling growth precisely when we need to meet demand and keep energy prices affordable for American families and businesses."

Decline in Power Purchase Agreements: Something to Watch

While Q3 posted record installations, the forward-looking indicators tell a more concerning story. Power purchase agreements (PPAs) fell 31% year-over-year, pushing the year-to-date total for all offtake types 38% below the same point last year.

Despite robust demand for power, buyers largely sat on the sidelines in the third quarter, waiting for a clearer policy environment to emerge and the rules around tax credit eligibility for developing future projects to be set. Treasury's long-awaited guidance on transferable tax credits and foreign-entity-of-concern rules only landed halfway through Q3, this complicated financing conversations and resulted in virtually no net pipeline growth (<1 %), quarter-over-quarter.

"Demand from AI, data centers, and onshoring manufacturing is set to push U.S. electricity needs to all-time highs next year," added Grumet. "With swift policy action, this demand can be met with domestic clean energy, supporting U.S. competitiveness in the race for these new technologies."

Q3 2025 Key Highlights:

• Total Clean Power Capacity Installed: Strongest Q3 on record. Total clean power capacity installed in Q3 2025 at 11,695 MW represents a 14% increase YOY. Of that capacity, land-based wind increased 131% over Q3 2024.

• Pipeline Hits All-time High but Growth Stalls: The clean power pipeline reached a new high of 186,185 MW by the end of September, growing 9% YOY. However, the pipeline expanded a mere 1% from the first quarter of 2025.

• 2025 On Pace for a Strong Year: Year to date, 30.9 GW of clean energy power generation has been connected to the grid, up 1 GW from the current top year (2024) for clean energy installation.

• Offtake Agreements in Decline: Clean energy offtake announcements during the first three quarters of 2025 were down 38%, compared to the same period in 2024.

• States Set to Double Clean Energy Portfolios: Eleven states have enough capacity in their pipelines to more than double their operational portfolios: Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee and Virginia.

• Offshore Wind Faces Challenges: No capacity changes during Q3, but moving into the fourth quarter, the offshore wind pipeline will decline, after Invenergy submitted a petition to cancel its OREC agreement with the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities for Leading Light Wind (2,400 MW).

A public version of the report is available on the ACP website, with the full report and underlying datasets available exclusively to ACP members.

The American Clean Power Association (ACP) is the leading voice of today's multi-tech clean energy industry, representing energy storage, wind, utility-scale solar, clean hydrogen, and transmission companies. ACP is committed to meeting America's energy and national security goals and building our economy with fast-growing, low-cost, and reliable domestic power.

Learn more at cleanpower.org, and follow ACP on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and X.