The forecast: NOAA pegs the odds at 61% for an El Niño emerging between May and July, with a 25% chance it qualifies as “very strong,” pushing ocean temps 2°C above average in some regions. Utilities may confront floods or a combo of drought and wildfire conditions—along with spiking demand.

The playbook: In SoCal, SDG&E is hardening stressed circuits to handle intense heatwaves and fortifying low-lying substations against coastal flooding. Up north, Seattle City Light is banking reservoir water as drought risk and early snowmelt threaten summer hydro generation.

The gamble: During the intense 2022-23 El Niño, utilities spent millions preparing for devastating SoCal floods…but they never arrived. Risk analysts’ advice? Orgs can harness AI forecasting to model for the worst-case extremes.

Yesterday in Mass., Chief US District Judge Denise Casper temporarily restricted Interior Department permitting policies that industry groups say have slowed wind and solar projects. These include time-consuming reviews of projects on federal lands and waters by Interior Sec. Doug Burgum’s office—just as Biden-era tax credits are set to expire.

It’s the latest update in a lawsuit filed by wind and solar groups against the Trump administration in December—they claim that federal officials had “the goal and effect of destroying solar and wind energy” proposals. This recent order follows several court-defeated attempts by President Trump to halt construction on East Coast offshore wind projects.

PJM collected nearly $25M in these fees in 2025, up from around $13M in 2024, per the RTO’s recently released annual financial report. This shift reflects “the increased volume of projects moving through the various interconnection queue phases,” a PJM representative told Energy Central in an email. They noted that, as a non-profit, PJM doesn’t profit from the fees.

The scoreboard: More than 270 US data centers now face local resistance in Heatmap Pro’s database, edging past 258 on/offshore wind projects. Solar still ranks first in community opposition (nearly 2x that of data centers). But the 51+ GW of opposed data center capacity roughly matches contested solar on a MW basis. 

Speaking of data centers: Meta reserved up to 1 GW/100 GWh of ultra-long duration storage from Noon Energy, starting with a 25-MW/2.5-GWh first phase slated for 2028. Noon’s reversible solid oxide fuel cell stores energy in abundant elements like carbon and oxygen (rather than lithium) and can discharge for 100+ hours.

Engie CEO Catherine MacGregor said the utility is in talks with the Trump administration to scrap its US offshore leases…just a month after TotalEnergies cut a $1B buyback for the same treatment. The catch? Some legal experts question whether the Interior can refund lease payments in the first place. 

Engie and JV partner EDP Renováveis have already paused three US projects since Trump retook office. MacGregor’s POV: “It will be complicated to develop offshore wind in the US, whatever the administration.”

By the numbers: 2025 delivered 8.2 GW, with roughly 11 GW forecast for 2026 and 48 GW projected through 2030 (mostly onshore wind). A 15.4-GW pipeline of new capacity has already passed commercial hurdles, pointing to incoming growth despite federal opposition, soaring costs, and permitting challenges.

The West leads this year at 64% of connections, driven largely by Pattern Energy’s 3.5-GW SunZia project in NM. The Midwest is set to peak next year, and Texas may claim the top spot in 2028 with around 2.5 GW.

Yes, but: Department of Defense permit reviews are a binding constraint—the backlog of turbines awaiting determination grew more than 5X in 2025 to nearly 5K. And the lawsuit we mentioned earlier doesn’t cover DoD-driven delays.

Non-profits are petitioning CA’s Supreme Court to overturn a March appeals court decision upholding net energy metering 3.0. This policy cuts compensation for consumers’ excess rooftop solar generation and incentivizes residential energy storage systems. The organizations claim that NEM 3 was “sought” by PG&E, San Diego Gas & Electric, and SCE, and that the lower court overlooked the cost-saving benefits of small-scale distributed solar.

Reality check: CA’s solar industry is currently staying afloat by working through a backlog of legacy NEM 2.0 projects. Now, one advocate warns of a massive shock when that legacy pipeline finally dries up…just as federal rooftop solar tax credits are set to expire.