Wind groups sue Pentagon over stalled reviews blocking 100+ projects

KEY DEVELOPMENTS

• Wind Industry Sues Pentagon Over Review Freeze: More than 100 planned wind farms across 21 states sit idle as renewable energy groups ask courts to end what they call a "total halt" to military aviation reviews that the Defense Department had processed routinely for years. Read More: ask courts to end.
• SunZia's 3,650 MW Wind Farm Begins Operations: The SunZia Wind Project in New Mexico, now the largest wind farm in the United States with 916 turbines and 3,650 MW of capacity, is entering commercial operations. Read More: entering commercial operations.
• Cypress Creek Closes $3.5B Arkansas Solar-Storage Deal: The Steel River Energy Center in Mississippi County, Arkansas, secured financing for 1.63 GW of solar and 1.9 GWh of battery storage, with a virtual PPA from an investment-grade corporate buyer. Read More: virtual PPA.
• Meta Stacks Two Solar PPAs in One Week: The company signed a 298 MW deal with RWE for a Texas project and a separate PPA with Zelestra, extending its position as the most aggressive Big Tech solar buyer in 2026.
• SEIA Warns Solar Permitting Delays Are Dragging Growth: A joint report from SEIA and Wood Mackenzie found that permitting bottlenecks are compounding the 27% decline in Q1 installations, hitting utility-scale pipelines hardest. Read More: permitting bottlenecks.

Solar & Storage

Cypress Creek Renewables' $3.5 billion close on the Steel River Energy Center was the week's marquee financing event, and fresh details reinforce how large the project could become. Phases 1 and 2 cover 1.63 GW of solar paired with 1.9 GWh of battery storage in Mississippi County, Arkansas. By 2029, Cypress Creek plans to expand the site to 2.45 GW of solar and 2.9 GWh of storage — numbers that would make Steel River one of the largest hybrid facilities in the country. Revenue is backstopped by a virtual power purchase agreement with what the company describes as an investment-grade corporate counterparty, though it has not disclosed the buyer's name. For developers watching capital flows, the deal is a signal that lenders still have appetite for multi-billion-dollar renewables financings even amid policy uncertainty in Washington.

Meta, meanwhile, is building what amounts to a shadow utility. The company signed a 298 MW solar PPA with RWE for the Rabbit's Foot Solar project in North Texas — already under construction — to feed data center load. Days later, it inked a separate deal with Zelestra, a Spanish developer expanding into the U.S. market. The two agreements land as hyperscaler demand continues to outstrip available clean generation. Meta has not disclosed the megawatt size of the Zelestra contract, but the rapid-fire signings suggest the company's procurement team is locking in capacity before tariff and permitting headwinds push prices higher. Read More: signed a 298 MW solar PPA with RWE, inked a separate deal with Zelestra.

Those headwinds are real. A new SEIA and Wood Mackenzie analysis confirms that permitting delays are a drag on growth, compounding a first quarter that already saw installations drop 27% to 7.8 GWdc. The report does not isolate a single bottleneck — interconnection queues, local zoning fights, and federal review timelines all contribute. For project finance teams, the takeaway is that schedule risk now rivals commodity risk as a driver of returns. Read More: confirms that permitting delays.

On the smaller end of the scale, California's CPUC celebrated the completion of two community solar installations totaling 2.2 MW in Oakland and Carson, developed by Ava Community Energy on rooftops owned by logistics landlord Prologis. The projects target bill relief for disadvantaged communities. But that ribbon-cutting masks a deeper fight: the same commission advanced a community solar program structure that industry groups call economically unworkable. The CPUC chose the utility-controlled ReMAT pricing model over the Net Value Billing Tariff that independent developers had lobbied for, effectively giving investor-owned utilities veto power over project economics. Developers who built business plans around California's community solar potential will need to reassess — or wait for a legislative override. Read More: advanced a community solar program structure.

In Hawaii, Brigham Young University–Hawaii is launching the second phase of a campus solar project aimed at reaching 100% solar-powered operations. The university has not disclosed capacity figures for Phase 2, but the effort is notable in a state where retail electricity rates routinely exceed 30 cents per kilowatt-hour — making on-site solar among the fastest-payback investments anywhere in the country. Read More: launching the second phase.

On the equipment side, Trinasolar introduced its 620-watt Vertex N Shield module for the North American market. The dual-glass TOPCon panel is engineered to withstand 55mm hailstones — roughly 2.5 times the impact resistance of conventional modules. That spec matters in Texas, the Plains states, and parts of the Southeast where insurers have begun repricing hail risk into project costs. Trinasolar is betting that developers will pay a premium for modules that reduce both replacement expense and insurance premiums. Read More: withstand 55mm hailstones.

Wind Energy

The SunZia Wind Project just became the largest operating wind farm in the United States, and it isn't close. At 3,650 MW across 916 turbines in central New Mexico, SunZia dwarfs the previous record holder and delivers generation that will travel west on the companion SunZia transmission line to Arizona and California markets. The project's commercial operation date lands at a moment when the broader onshore wind industry is struggling to get new projects permitted, making SunZia both a triumph of long-horizon development — it spent more than a decade in permitting — and an outlier. Read More: dwarfs the previous record holder.

That struggle is now heading to court. Renewable energy trade groups filed suit against the Department of Defense over what they describe as a complete shutdown of military aviation compatibility reviews for wind projects, according to reporting by the New York Times. The reviews assess whether turbine heights and locations could interfere with military radar or flight training routes. Before the Trump administration, the Pentagon processed them as a routine interagency function. Now, more than 100 planned wind farms across 21 states cannot proceed. The lawsuit asks federal judges to compel the Defense Department to resume clearances. For developers holding interconnection agreements and land leases with expiration clocks, the delay is not abstract — it translates directly into carrying costs and lapsed contracts. Read More: reporting by the New York Times.

Shell, meanwhile, is accelerating its retreat from wind. Bloomberg and reNEWS both reported the oil major is planning a $1 billion sale of offshore wind assets. Shell has been unwinding its renewables portfolio for over a year, and the sale will test whether buyers exist at that scale in a market where offshore wind economics remain stressed by high interest rates and supply chain costs. The transaction could attract infrastructure funds or sovereign wealth investors willing to take a longer view, but a fire-sale price would send a chilling signal to the rest of the offshore sector. Read More: $1 billion sale of offshore wind assets.

There is one sign the Trump administration may be softening its hardest line. Heatmap News reported that the administration conceded a legal battle related to offshore wind — a rare tactical retreat in what has otherwise been a sustained campaign against the sector. Details remain sparse behind the outlet's paywall, but the concession may reflect the limits of executive authority when projects hold valid federal permits and binding offtake contracts. Read More: reported.

Policy & Markets

California's community solar fight is shaping up as the most consequential state-level solar policy battle of the year. The CPUC's decision to adopt the ReMAT pricing structure rather than the industry-preferred Net Value Billing Tariff hands rate-setting control to Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas & Electric. Solar trade groups argue the economics simply don't pencil under ReMAT, which pegs compensation at levels that cannot support project debt service. If the program remains as structured, California — the country's largest solar market — may have effectively killed independent community solar development while simultaneously celebrating a pair of 2.2 MW demonstration projects. The contradiction is not lost on developers.

At the federal level, the SEIA and Wood Mackenzie permitting report lands as a data point reinforcing what the industry has felt for quarters. After Q1 solar installations fell 27% year over year to 7.8 GWdc, the report argues that bureaucratic delays — not lack of demand or capital — are the binding constraint. Utilities, corporates, and data center operators are all signing PPAs; the problem is that projects cannot move from signed contract to shovel in the ground fast enough. Interconnection queue reform, which FERC has been working on since 2023, has yet to deliver measurable relief at the project level.

A white paper from the Center for Renewables Integration and Pure Power Engineering adds a storage-specific angle, cataloging the persistent barriers to deploying distributed energy storage across different states. The analysis identifies inconsistent interconnection standards, outdated fire codes, and utility resistance as recurring obstacles — issues that state legislatures in New Jersey, New York, and others are trying to address through targeted incentive programs. Read More: persistent barriers to deploying distributed energy storage.

LOOKING AHEAD

• Pentagon Wind Review Lawsuit Timeline: Courts will need to decide whether to grant expedited relief to the 100+ stalled wind projects; a preliminary injunction hearing could come within weeks and would set a precedent for executive authority over routine interagency reviews.
• Steel River Construction Milestones: With $3.5 billion secured, Cypress Creek will begin procurement and site work in Mississippi County, Arkansas — watch for turbine and panel supply contracts that will signal which manufacturers benefit from the project's scale.
• California Community Solar Legislative Response: Solar industry groups are expected to push Sacramento lawmakers for a statutory override of the CPUC's ReMAT pricing decision; committee hearings could surface before the legislature's summer recess.

THE BOTTOM LINE: The U.S. clean energy industry is building at record scale where it can — SunZia's 3,650 MW, Steel River's $3.5 billion — but permitting paralysis at the Pentagon and the CPUC is systematically narrowing the pipeline behind these landmark projects.