Fossil plants are 30% of the US power pipeline again: what the EDF and Atlas numbers show

Victoria Shinder15 October 2026, 06:472 min read

Environmental Defense Fund and Atlas Public Policy published a report on 13 October 2026, An Inflection Point for the U.S. Power Sector, built on US Energy Information Administration generator data compiled through Atlas's Clean Economy Tracker, with projects reported as of the second quarter of 2026. The headline is a reversal in what is planned, not yet in what is being built.

What comes online today. Clean energy still dominates new capacity, because today's additions reflect projects developed over several years. Fossil power accounted for just 5% of new capacity in 2024.

What is in the pipeline. Planned fossil capacity has climbed to its highest level since 2016 and now makes up about 30% of the development pipeline. Developers expect to build about 68 GW of new fossil capacity between 2026 and 2030, nearly all of it natural gas — up 45% in six months. If projects come online as planned, fossil fuels could supply about 70% of new capacity in 2030, a level not seen since the early 2010s.

Cancellations run the other way. Clean power cancellations reached 4.9% of planned and under-construction capacity in 2025, against 2.9% for fossil projects. The report also lists what could still stop some gas plants: turbine shortages, rising costs and uncertain demand.

Coal stays. Owners had planned to retire 8.5 GW of coal in 2025; less than 1 GW actually retired, the lowest since 2009. The report notes that the administration has announced $850 million to support coal facilities, including two proposed new plants.

The cost line. New wind and utility-scale solar average about $68–69/MWh over their lifetimes in the report's figures, against $90/MWh for new combined-cycle gas.

How to read it. EDF is an advocacy group and says so in its conclusions: it attributes the shift to data-centre-driven demand growth and to federal policies that ended wind and solar credits and support fossil investment, and argues for clearing barriers to clean power and transmission. The pipeline figures themselves come from EIA filings; the 70% for 2030 is a projection that holds only if projects are built as planned.

Source: Environmental Defense Fund, "Report: U.S. power pipeline shifts toward more costly, polluting fossil fuels as clean energy faces new headwinds" — https://www.edf.org/media/report-us-power-pipeline-shifts-toward-more-costly-polluting-fossil-fuels-clean-energy-faces