Why One-Third of Clean Energy Projects Fail Before Construction
Michael Grossman • March 18, 2026
Across America, clean energy plants are being banned faster than they’re being built.
A few days ago I wrote that roughly 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐞 𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐲 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐔𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧.
The comments went predictably where these conversations usually go: turbine blades can't be recycled, wind and solar intermittency, transmission lines and eminent domain, and whether wind and solar “work.”
That’s not the interesting part. What’s interesting is what the reaction reveals about how these projects actually fail.
By the time a project shows up at a county commission, the debate is usually already over. Not formally. But functionally.
𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐰 775 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐔𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬—𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 25% 𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬—𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐲 𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐩𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭.
That didn’t happen at public hearings. That happened months or years earlier as local narratives took shape.
And it’s accelerating.
Why Local Opposition Is Growing
𝐍𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐲 500 𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐰𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐲 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐬 49 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐳𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, some by organically concerned citizens and some manufactured by fossil fuel front groups.
Regardless, local restrictions on wind, solar, and storage have grown double digits year-over-year. In some analyses, 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 15% 𝐨𝐟 𝐔.𝐒. 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲-𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐨𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫.
This is not a technology problem. It’s not even primarily a policy problem. Politics being politics, however, this is a sequencing problem.
What Happens Before the Permit Hearing
Developers enter the conversation at the permit stage and assume they are there to explain the project.
In reality, they are walking into a conversation that has already been framed by:
• Local concerns about land use and identity
• Organized advocacy groups with prepared narratives
• Neighbors talking to neighbors in small communities long before the first public meeting
By the time of the public hearings, facts don’t land the way developers expect them to because people aren’t deciding what to think. They’ve already decided, and the hearing just makes it visible.
Lessons from the Clean Fuel Standard Fight
We changed that dynamic during the fight to pass the Clean Fuel Standard in Washington State.
The debate wasn’t won on technical merits alone. Yes, research showed
clean fuels made from used cooking oil, food, farm, and forest waste reduced transportation emissions significantly without raising gas prices. It turned when the credibility of the voices in the room became clear—who was speaking, and who they were speaking for.
• Small restaurant owners (largely African-American) who could count on a steady payment for their grease.
• Black church leaders who understood their parishioners were disproportionately affected by air pollution
• Dairy farmers suffering from low milk prices could benefit from capturing methane from cows and turning it into biogas.
• Timber communities could put people back to work turning forest slash into sustainable aviation fuel.
Those were the people we educated about the policy months before the bill was introduced at the state legislature, and those constituents had more sway over their elected officials than well-heeled fossil fuel lobbyists who were testifying at the state capitol that the clean fuel standard would raise gas prices and hurt the poor.
That’s how these decisions move.
Clean Energy Developers Need More Than Engineering To Succeed
The clean energy transition isn’t just an engineering challenge (although my hat is off to those folks). It’s a local, political, narrative-driven process that starts long before a project is announced.
Developers who recognize that reality early get projects built. Developers who don’t are often surprised when the permit is denied, or can't even get on the docket.
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Clean energy developers do not lose projects because their technology fails. They lose projects because they misunderstand how decisions get made in the communities where those projects are proposed. If you spend enough time around project development, you start to see the same pattern. A site pencils. The resource is there. Interconnection works. Capital is lined up. Then the project enters the public process and something shifts. Opposition forms. Local officials hesitate. The project stalls or disappears. That outcome is not rare. Roughly one out of every three large clean energy projects in the United States never reaches construction . At the same time, the environment around these projects is getting harder. Research from the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University tracks hundreds of renewable energy projects across dozens of states facing organized opposition, along with a growing number of local laws restricting development. Across the country, local resistance is no longer episodic. It is structural. Most developers respond by trying to improve how they explain their projects. That is not where the problem sits. The most common messaging mistake clean energy developers make is this: They treat communication as explanation when it is actually coalition building. The Illusion Of Stakeholder Engagement Developers often approach communication by identifying “stakeholders” and building a plan to engage them. The list is familiar. Elected officials, regulators, adjacent landowners, business groups. Those people matter, but they are not the community. Communities are not organized through formal roles. They are organized through trust . Influence sits with people who do not appear on stakeholder maps. A pastor, a co-op manager, a respected farmer, a small business owner. These are the people others listen to when they are deciding what a project means. When engagement is limited to formal stakeholders, developers miss the informal networks where opinions actually form. That gap is where opposition gains ground. Developers Try To Be The Messenger Even when developers engage early, they often assume they should be the ones delivering the message. They have the data. They understand the project. They can explain the benefits. That logic makes sense internally. It is less effective externally. People trust those who share their lived experience . A developer entering from outside the community is asking for trust before it exists. A local voice does not need to make that same ask. This is not a communications nuance. It is the difference between being heard and being discounted. Projects that move forward tend to have credible local voices who can explain the project in terms that make sense to their neighbors. Projects that fail often rely on the developer to carry that burden alone. What is actually at stake These dynamics are easy to underestimate because they are not reflected in financial models. A utility-scale wind or solar project in the 50 to 100 megawatt range typically requires $75 million to $200 million in upfront capital, depending on technology, location, and interconnection costs. Over a 20 to 30 year lifespan, those projects can generate hundreds of millions of dollars in contracted revenue, particularly when backed by long-term power purchase agreements. When a project fails at the permitting stage, that capital is not redeployed cleanly. Time is lost. Development costs are written off. Market windows close. This is not a marginal issue. It is a core risk to the business model. The New Pressure: Data Centers The stakes are rising because demand is rising. The rapid growth of artificial intelligence and cloud computing is driving a surge in data center development across the United States. These facilities require enormous and continuous electricity loads. Recent analysis from Pew Research Center notes that data center electricity consumption in the U.S. is expected to increase significantly as AI adoption expands, placing new pressure on regional grids. At the same time, research from Columbia Business School highlights a growing race to secure power for these facilities, with developers competing for access to clean and reliable electricity. Additional analysis from Environmental and Energy Study Institute warns that data center demand is already reshaping grid planning and could complicate climate goals if new supply does not come online fast enough. This creates a collision. On one side, data center developers need large volumes of electricity, increasingly from low-carbon sources. On the other, local opposition is making it harder to build the very projects required to meet that demand. The result is a tightening constraint on both infrastructure and timelines. Coalition Building As A Development Function In this environment, coalition building is not a communications add-on. It is a core development function. Projects that succeed tend to follow a different sequence. They identify credible local voices early. They invest time in understanding how the project intersects with local concerns. They allow the community to shape how the project is discussed rather than introducing a fully formed narrative late in the process. This work often happens before a project is publicly announced. It rarely appears in investor updates. It is difficult to quantify. It is also one of the clearest predictors of whether a project moves forward. A Different Way To Think About Messaging If you treat messaging as explanation, your goal is clarity. You want people to understand what the project is and why it matters. If you treat messaging as coalition building, your goal is different. You are working to ensure that when the project becomes public, there are already trusted voices within the community who understand it, can speak to it, and see a place for it. That shift changes everything. It changes who speaks. It changes when conversations begin. It changes how opposition is received. The Broader Implication The clean energy transition is often framed as a technological and financial challenge. Those elements matter. Progress on both has been significant. At the same time, the growing number of local restrictions, the scale of organized opposition, and the surge in electricity demand from data centers point to a different constraint. The limiting factor is not always whether a project can be built. It is whether a community is prepared to accept it. Developers who recognize that early and build coalitions accordingly get projects built. Developers who do not often find themselves trying to explain a project after the decision has already been made.
