Read the full research note here.

Every January, the project finance law team at Norton Rose Fulbright (NRF) brings together bankers and infrastructure investment experts to discuss trends across the American energy and infrastructure finance landscape. Their annual Cost of Capital outlook is a deep well of information that allows our team to support our state and local government clients. Last year, we summarized the takeaways we believed were worth policymakers’ attention. This year, we’ll do the same—but we’ll be drawing from more sources.

Last month, Norton Rose Fulbright also published another interview specifically about the state of the renewable energy industry: “Racing To Meet Electricity Demand.” It accounts how energy financial professionals are growing apprehensive about the landscape for financing solar, wind, and storage. At the same time, Crux released its 2025 Third Quarter tax credit pricing update—which illustrated a precipitous drop in the price of investment tax credits—and Nat Bullard of Halcyon released his 2025 presentation on the state of decarbonization. The combination of these releases gives us a fairly detailed picture of the state of solar and wind energy investment in the United States.

There’s also news coming out of the public sector that’s worth juxtaposing against private investment trends. The Minnesota Climate Innovation Finance Authority’s (MnCIFA) survey of solar developers in the state suggests a “K-shaped” trajectory for the solar industry: The large solar developers remain the big fish in a shrinking pond while smaller ones working on smaller projects lose out. A lawsuit by the Connecticut Green Bank (CTGB) against PosiGen, a rooftop solar and distributed energy resource provider that filed for bankruptcy in November, for the recovery of a loan, sheds some light on this process. The twist is that CTGB is really accusing PosiGen’s main creditor, Brookfield, the private credit firm, for extending senior credit in order to strip PosiGen of its assets before it entered bankruptcy— stiffing its other creditors, CTGB included. We’re yet to see how this lawsuit plays out, but CTGB’s claim lends some heft to claims of a K-shaped trajectory for renewable energy as private investors hoover up whatever pipelines they have easy access to. Indeed, there’s ample evidence from the private sector that mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity in the power sector is skyrocketing.

Last summer, when the One Big Beautiful Bill (OB3A) passed, we argued that the country was headed toward “One big, beautiful blackout.” We stressed that the law is “creating incentives for underinvestment.” The data available—to say nothing of the incredible policy uncertainty caused by fluctuations in tariffs, bond markets, offshore wind permitting, and extremely delayed “foreign entity of concern” rules—suggests that our hypothesis certainly has not been proven wrong.

Section I will summarize takeaways from the Cost of Capital webinar, complemented by additional sector-specific context and visualizations of financing conditions. Section II will describe how developers and investors are dealing with policy uncertainty and a tightening financial landscape, juxtaposing trends in renewable energy project finance against broader macro conditions, the market for gas power, and a drive for consolidation in the power sector. Section III will explain how these dynamics are affecting public sector-led clean energy finance initiatives. Section IV will conclude with a summary of takeaways and a discussion of the opportunities public agencies have to intervene in and stabilize a shaky market for renewable energy projects.

Read the full research note here.

Read the full research note here.

Every January, the project finance law team at Norton Rose Fulbright (NRF) brings together bankers and infrastructure investment experts to discuss trends across the American energy and infrastructure finance landscape. Their annual Cost of Capital outlook is a deep well of information that allows our team to support our state and local government clients. Last year, we summarized the takeaways we believed were worth policymakers’ attention. This year, we’ll do the same—but we’ll be drawing from more sources.

Last month, Norton Rose Fulbright also published another interview specifically about the state of the renewable energy industry: “Racing To Meet Electricity Demand.” It accounts how energy financial professionals are growing apprehensive about the landscape for financing solar, wind, and storage. At the same time, Crux released its 2025 Third Quarter tax credit pricing update—which illustrated a precipitous drop in the price of investment tax credits—and Nat Bullard of Halcyon released his 2025 presentation on the state of decarbonization. The combination of these releases gives us a fairly detailed picture of the state of solar and wind energy investment in the United States.

There’s also news coming out of the public sector that’s worth juxtaposing against private investment trends. The Minnesota Climate Innovation Finance Authority’s (MnCIFA) survey of solar developers in the state suggests a “K-shaped” trajectory for the solar industry: The large solar developers remain the big fish in a shrinking pond while smaller ones working on smaller projects lose out. A lawsuit by the Connecticut Green Bank (CTGB) against PosiGen, a rooftop solar and distributed energy resource provider that filed for bankruptcy in November, for the recovery of a loan, sheds some light on this process. The twist is that CTGB is really accusing PosiGen’s main creditor, Brookfield, the private credit firm, for extending senior credit in order to strip PosiGen of its assets before it entered bankruptcy— stiffing its other creditors, CTGB included. We’re yet to see how this lawsuit plays out, but CTGB’s claim lends some heft to claims of a K-shaped trajectory for renewable energy as private investors hoover up whatever pipelines they have easy access to. Indeed, there’s ample evidence from the private sector that mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity in the power sector is skyrocketing.

Last summer, when the One Big Beautiful Bill (OB3A) passed, we argued that the country was headed toward “One big, beautiful blackout.” We stressed that the law is “creating incentives for underinvestment.” The data available—to say nothing of the incredible policy uncertainty caused by fluctuations in tariffs, bond markets, offshore wind permitting, and extremely delayed “foreign entity of concern” rules—suggests that our hypothesis certainly has not been proven wrong.

Section I will summarize takeaways from the Cost of Capital webinar, complemented by additional sector-specific context and visualizations of financing conditions. Section II will describe how developers and investors are dealing with policy uncertainty and a tightening financial landscape, juxtaposing trends in renewable energy project finance against broader macro conditions, the market for gas power, and a drive for consolidation in the power sector. Section III will explain how these dynamics are affecting public sector-led clean energy finance initiatives. Section IV will conclude with a summary of takeaways and a discussion of the opportunities public agencies have to intervene in and stabilize a shaky market for renewable energy projects.

Read the full research note here.