The Fall 2025 Power Brief highlights major shifts shaping today's energy industry. U.S. natural gas production continues to rise as data centers drive new demand and LNG export activity resumes. Power markets are tightening—PJM capacity prices are rising, and New England's decarbonization studies highlight the high costs associated with the final steps toward net zero.

Renewable development faces new headwinds from federal policy changes, tariffs, and adjustments to tax credits, even as corporations continue to contract large amounts of solar, wind, and storage. The administration has also advanced significant regulatory rollbacks, including proposals to repeal 2024 power plant emission standards and revisit the 2009 Endangerment Finding.

International reliability events, including the April 2025 blackout on the Iberian Peninsula, offer critical lessons for grids with high renewable penetration. Meanwhile, DOE has directed FERC to create the first-ever federal process for interconnecting large electrical loads, reflecting the rapid growth of power-intensive facilities such as data centers.