US Renewable Energy M&A: Who Is Buying, What They Pay and How Deals Are Structured

By the Enerdatics Research Team. Data from Enerdatics Leap, queried 6 November 2026.

Short answer: Private equity and infrastructure funds, PE-backed platforms and listed utilities are the main buyers of US renewable assets, across 535 deals announced since January 2024 according to Enerdatics, which links each US deal to its source document. Operating solar has traded at a median of about $1.02 million per MW, while development-stage solar pipeline changes hands for a developer premium of about $0.06 million per MW. Most deals are asset purchases of projects still under development.

How Enerdatics solves this

Enerdatics shows who has bought at every stage and in every market, including unannounced and stealth deals you will not find in the press. Advisers and developers use it to build buyer lists with bidders their competitors miss. Every deal links back to its source. When you run a sale process, Enerdatics shows which funds, utilities and platforms have bought assets like yours in the last 24 months and what they paid, so your buyer list is complete before the first teaser goes out. Enerdatics tracks 535 US renewable energy M&A deals announced since January 2024, including 115 stealth deals. Available through CoreData, Stack dashboards, Leap AI and API.

Key takeaways

• Enerdatics records 535 US renewable energy M&A deals announced between 1 January 2024 and 6 November 2026.
• Solar accounts for 346 of those deals, or about 65 percent, and battery storage deals rose from 24 in 2024 to 27 so far in 2026.
• PE firms appear as buyers on 118 US deals since 2024, and PE-backed platforms appear on 176.
• Operating US solar traded at a median of $1.02 million per MW across 27 priced deals, against $1.53 million per MW for 10 in-construction deals.
• Asset deals make up 422 of the 535 transactions, and 246 of those bought projects still under development.

Methodology

This study uses the M&A deals dataset in Enerdatics Leap, filtered to the United States of America and to deals announced from 1 January 2024 to 6 November 2026. Retired records are excluded. That leaves 535 deals across all sectors and all statuses: 377 completed, 156 announced and 2 cancelled. Counts by buyer come from the Leap league table tool, and price benchmarks come from the Leap deal multiples tool, which only uses deals with a disclosed value.

Pricing samples are small. Of 346 US solar deals in the period, 62 carried a disclosed value usable for a per-MW figure, and the in-construction bucket holds only 10. Where a deal buys a minority stake, the per-MW price must be grossed up to a 100 percent value before comparison, as the KKR example below shows. Corporate deals, where a buyer acquires a whole company, are excluded from per-MW figures because their price also pays for a team and a pipeline. Megawatt totals for portfolio and platform deals can include entire pipelines, so this study relies on deal counts rather than summed MW. Treat medians built on fewer than 30 deals as a guide, not a rule.

How many US renewable M&A deals happen each year?

Enerdatics records 220 US deals announced in 2024, 162 in 2025 and 153 so far in 2026. Solar, wind and battery storage make up most of that volume, as the chart below shows.

The 2026 count already sits close to the full 2025 total with almost two months left in the year. Deal count is a cleaner measure of activity than headline value, because a handful of corporate takeovers can swing the dollar total by billions.

Value tells a different story. Disclosed deal value for US solar reached about $42 billion in 2026 so far, against about $14 billion in all of 2025. Much of that jump comes from a few large corporate transactions rather than a broad rise in asset prices.

Who is buying US renewable assets?

PE firms appear as buyers on 118 US deals since January 2024, PE-backed platforms on 176 and large-cap listed companies on 57. A PE-backed platform is an operating company owned by a private equity fund, which buys projects in its own name. One deal can carry more than one buyer type, so these counts overlap.

The most active individual buyers by deal count are smaller, specialised platforms. Standard Solar leads with 16 deals, followed by Altus Power with 14 and Aspen Power Partners with 10. All three focus on distributed and community solar, where single deals are small and frequent.

Large funds buy less often but write bigger cheques. Brookfield appears on 9 US deals in the period with about $11.4 billion of disclosed value, including its $7 billion agreement to buy Aypa Power from Blackstone. KKR appears on 5 deals with about $6.7 billion of disclosed value. Utilities form a third group. WEC Energy Group and MGE Energy, for example, agreed to buy the 300 MW Emerald Bluffs solar project from EDP for $567 million.

For a seller, this means the buyer list depends on the asset. A 5 MW community solar portfolio goes to the platforms. A 500 MW utility-scale project goes to funds, IPPs and utilities. Independent power producers, or IPPs, are companies that own and run power plants and sell the output, rather than serving customers as a regulated utility.

Which technologies are changing hands?

Solar dominates the deal count every year, but battery storage is taking a larger share. Battery deals were about 11 percent of US deals in 2024 and about 18 percent so far in 2026, as the table below shows.

That shift tracks the build-out. The US Energy Information Administration reported that developers planned about 24 GW of utility-scale battery additions in 2026, up from a record 15 GW added in 2025. More projects in the pipeline means more projects for sale.

Source: Enerdatics Leap, M&A deals dataset, 1 January 2024 to 6 November 2026.

Wind deals fell from 35 in 2024 to 10 in 2025. Other sectors include bio-fuels, geothermal, hydro, hydrogen and carbon capture.

What do buyers pay for US solar?

Enerdatics' data shows a median of $1.02 million per MW across 27 priced operating US solar deals since 2024, with the middle half of deals between $0.81 million and $1.31 million per MW. Price per MW is the deal value divided by the capacity bought, grossed up to 100 percent ownership.

In-construction solar priced higher, at a median of $1.53 million per MW across 10 deals. That looks odd at first, since a finished plant carries less risk. The sample of 10 deals is small, so the gap may reflect the mix of projects rather than a rule. KKR's agreement to buy a 50 percent stake in a 703 MW TotalEnergies portfolio for $600 million implies about $1.71 million per MW on a 100 percent basis, which our TotalEnergies and KKR flashnote breaks down.

Development-stage pipeline is priced differently. A developer premium is the amount a buyer pays per MW for a project that is not yet built, on top of costs the seller has spent. Across 19 US solar development deals with a disclosed premium, the median was about $0.06 million per MW. Ready-to-build projects drew a higher median premium of $0.10 million per MW across 6 deals.

Whole companies sell on earnings rather than megawatts. Across 6 priced corporate solar deals, the median enterprise value was 12.1 times EBITDA. Enterprise value is the price for the equity plus the company's net debt, and EBITDA is earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation.

How are US renewable deals structured?

Enerdatics records 422 asset deals, 89 corporate deals, 19 joint ventures and 5 platform deals among the 535 US transactions. An asset deal buys specific projects. A corporate deal buys a company. A joint venture shares ownership of projects between partners.

Most asset deals buy early. 246 asset deals bought projects under development, against 120 that bought operating plants and 56 that bought plants in construction. Buyers are paying to secure pipeline before it reaches the market as a finished asset.

Payment terms can follow that risk. 37 US deal records since 2024 mention milestones in their heading or summary, a rough marker of staged deal terms. A milestone payment is money paid only when a project reaches a stage such as an interconnection agreement or notice to proceed. These structures let a buyer pay less upfront and pay more only if the project advances.

Tax credits shape structures too. Under US transferability rules, the Internal Revenue Service lets an eligible taxpayer sell all or part of certain clean energy credits to an unrelated buyer for cash. That gives project owners a second source of value beside the power revenue, and it affects who can afford to own an asset.

Not every deal is public. 115 of the 535 US deals are stealth deals, where Enerdatics identified the transaction, the price, the buyer or the assets despite no public disclosure by the parties. Brookfield's $587 million purchase of a 1.5 GW operating solar portfolio from Pine Gate Renewables is one example. Our analysis of why Goldman bought RWE's US distributed arm shows how timing around tax rules can shape a deal.

Frequently asked questions

Who buys the most US renewable energy assets? By deal count since 2024, Standard Solar, Altus Power and Aspen Power Partners are the most active buyers in Enerdatics data. Among PE buyers, Global Infrastructure Partners, EQT and Brookfield lead by disclosed deal value.

What is a typical price per MW for an operating US solar farm? Enerdatics records a median of about $1.02 million per MW across 27 priced operating solar deals since January 2024. Individual prices range widely with contract length, location and project age.

Why do so many renewable deals use milestone payments? Development projects can stall at permitting or interconnection, so buyers tie part of the price to those steps. This lets sellers capture more value if the project advances while protecting buyers if it fails.

See who bought assets like yours, and what they paid. Ask Leap three free questions, answered from Enerdatics data. No sales call needed.