Power and utilities M&A 2026 midyear update: Deal activity reinforces scale, speed, and scarcity

Speed: M&A is shortening the path to owning and controlling power assets

When building new development is slow, buying can be a fast route to ownership or control of existing and advanced-stage development assets. The 2025 rationale stands: As load growth accelerates, M&A can help buyers gain access to power faster than developing new generation infrastructure. Early-stage developments are likely to encounter long development timelines, permitting and interconnection backlogs, supply chain constraints, and rising capital costs, even despite streamlining efforts.

Speed considerations are showing up across several “speed-to” strategies.

• Speed to capacity for operating generation: Talen Energy’s acquisition of a 2.6 GW gas generation portfolio in Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland Interconnection expanded its ability to serve large-load customers in the region.³
• Speed to market for regulated utility platforms: The proposed Dominion-NextEra merger brings together multiple fast-growing regulated service territories. With the added scale in the capital, development, and operational platform that NextEra provides, the merger could accelerate expansion and enhance service reliability and affordability for customers across combined service territories.⁴
• Speed to ownership for renewables and large-load customers: Amazon’s acquisition of up to 1.2 GW of shovel-ready solar and storage capacity in Oregon reflects a shift from traditional clean energy procurement via power purchase agreements toward direct ownership.⁵
• Speed to capital as a transaction strategy: Regulated utilities and power companies are also using strategic divestments to accelerate capital redeployment and fund growth in core operations. Examples include EDF’s sale of its North American renewable business to KKR and Spire’s sales of natural gas storage assets and its Mississippi business to I Squared and Delta Utilities, respectively.⁶

Scale: Companies pursue capacity and synergies

Some companies are using M&A to add owned generation capacity, expand portfolios, and capture development and operating synergies. At the same time, power and utilities M&A in the first half of 2026 was concentrated in larger deals. Deal volume remained near historical lows, with 92 transactions in the first half of 2026 compared with a record low of 87 deals in the first half of 2025. Yet, value remains concentrated in megadeals: Ten deals, each over a billion dollars, accounted for 97% of aggregate transaction value in the first six months of 2026.⁷

Generation capacity was similarly concentrated. Three megadeals, each with more than 10 plants in the portfolio and over 1 GW of aggregate capacity, accounted for nearly three-quarters of the 97 GW transacted in the first half of 2026.⁸ Those include the Dominion-NextEra deal, Vistra’s acquisition of Cogentrix, and Pattern Energy’s acquisition of Cordelio Power.⁹ The dominance of megadeals is consistent with the full-year 2025 data, which showed that megadeals accounted for 78% of the generation capacity transacted.¹⁰

For renewables, scale is increasingly being pursued primarily through asset acquisitions with select platform deals. In the first half of 2026, asset deals accounted for most of the aggregate transaction value, a shift from the same period in 2025, when company acquisitions led. Renewables dealmaking rebounded in the first six months of 2026 after a dip in 2025 (figure 2), while deal count remained well below historical levels.¹¹ Notable large-scale asset deals include Enel’s acquisition of an 830 MW wind and solar portfolio, Amazon’s 1.2 GW solar project acquisition, and Norges Bank’s acquisition of an interest in a 2.3 GW onshore wind and solar portfolio.¹² Notable platform deals pursuing scale in North America include Pattern Energy’s acquisition of Cordelio Power and MN8 Energy’s proposed acquisition of Greenbacker Renewable Energy.¹³

Scarcity: Dispatchable power is commanding a premium

Scarcity was the third priority that shaped power and utilities dealmaking in the first half of 2026. It reflects the need to secure deliverable power amid capacity constraints. Investors appear to be placing greater value on dispatchable, interconnected generation that can support reliability and deliverability in capacity-constrained markets.

On the buy side, scarcity centers on firm dispatchable generation. Natural gas remains central to securing firm power, accounting for 43% of the 97 GW generation capacity traded through M&A in the first half of 2026, followed by solar (16%) and nuclear (12%) (figure 3).¹⁵ Total capacity transacted through M&A rose 38% from 70 GW in the first half of 2025 to 97 GW in the same period in 2026, of which renewables and storage accounted for 35%, up from 15% in the same period in 2025.¹⁶ Battery storage also saw record capacity change hands in the first six months of 2026, with over 6 GW transacted, reaffirming its strategic role in supporting reliability and flexibility across resource types.¹⁷

The valuation data further reinforces the scarcity premium that natural gas generation capacity offers. According to Deloitte analysis, gas-fired generation M&A valuations more than doubled in the past two years, from US$675 per kW for the full-year 2024 to US$1,468 per kW for January through June 2026 (figure 4).¹⁸ While transaction valuations can vary based on factors such as plant age, efficiency, fuel access, and market conditions, the increase is consistent with a market premium for operating, interconnected, dispatchable power.¹⁹

Considerations for the second half of 2026 and beyond

The first half of 2026 reinforces the core findings from our February report: Securing deliverable power at scale under tightening reliability, capital, and execution constraints remains a priority for companies. As the second half unfolds, market participants can approach M&A strategy through the lens of speed, scale, and scarcity—as a tool for capturing value, not a substitute for developing incremental capacity. This could include assessing how M&A can shorten the path to owning deliverable power, where capital recycling can fund higher-priority growth, and which assets warrant a premium for reliability attributes beyond nameplate capacity.