Texas Clean Energy 2026

Clean energy development in Texas outpaced expectations despite recent uncertainty, with strong demand driven by data centers and C&I customers. However, developers face a complex and evolving landscape, new legislation, shifting ERCOT rules, capital market constraints, FEOC guidance, interconnection changes, ongoing transmission limitations, and rising costs, all further shaping which projects remain viable. While pivoting from an incentive to a market-driven model, developers, financiers, and other stakeholders must switch their thinking to focus on fundamentals and create sustainable growth, adapting strategies for financing, procurement, compliance, and risk mitigation. This panel will examine how developers are responding to these challenges and what the future holds for utility-scale renewable energy in Texas.

• What does development look like today, in the next few years? How timelines, cost, and siting uncertainties evaluated? What about post-incentive projects, anyone crystal-balling those? Cost uncertainty and capital availability? Is co-location with load the answer?
• FEOC, material assistance, begun construction, facts-and-circumstance, continuous physical work: Is guidance working? Are developers prioritizing projects and equipment shuffling? How are risks and costs shared: contract triggers, insurance?
• How are transmission constraints and interconnection cost allocations changing? Are firming requirements shifting costs? Planning for congestion constraints? What new in ancillaries?
• Money talks: What do PPAs look like today, and are data centers changing offtake expectations? How might developers work with utilities and large load customers to share appropriate risks? What about RECs, tax credits, the capital stack changing?
• Is NIMBYism killing projects? Is development harder today given federal actions? What about distressed assets and M&A, are deep pockets necessary to move ahead?
• Planning the future: How are developers looking at their finite safe harbored equipment and making decisions regarding where it goes? Are non-qualifying projects going to be financed, planned, or equipped differently, and what does the industry look like in the future?