Clearway Energy is the fifth-largest U.S. renewable energy company by operating capacity, owning roughly 12.9 GW of power generation assets across 27 states. It is structured as a yieldco: a publicly traded entity that holds contracted power plants under long-term PPAs and passes the resulting cash flows to shareholders as dividends. The publicly traded entity — Clearway Energy, Inc. — trades on the NYSE under two share classes, CWEN (Class C) and CWEN.A (Class A). The private sponsor, Clearway Energy Group (CEG), is owned equally by BlackRock (which acquired Global Infrastructure Partners in 2024) and TotalEnergies. CEG holds roughly 42% of the economic interest in Clearway Energy, Inc.
The company's origins trace to NRG Yield, a yieldco NRG Energy spun out in December 2012 to hold its contracted generation assets. Global Infrastructure Partners acquired NRG Energy's interest in NRG Yield in August 2018 for approximately $1.375 billion and rebranded the company as Clearway Energy. TotalEnergies bought 50% of CEG from GIP in May 2022, establishing the current co-sponsor structure. The two sponsors use CEG as the development platform — building, acquiring, and maturing renewable projects — and then sell operating assets down into the public CWEN entity as cash-yielding investments.
The core financial metric Clearway reports is Cash Available for Distribution (CAFD): operating cash flow after debt service and maintenance capital, available to pay common dividends. Clearway targets predictable CAFD growth by acquiring new contracted assets from CEG (called "dropdowns"), repowering older wind and solar projects to extend their useful life and PPA contracts, and adding battery storage to existing project sites.
Revenue and EBITDA are meaningful but secondary metrics in this structure. CAFD is what drives dividend capacity. FY2025 CAFD of $430 million hit the top of the guidance range. The 2026 guidance of $470-510 million represents 9-19% growth. The company's 2030 CAFD per share target of $2.90-$3.10 implies multi-year compounding from the current run rate, supported by a dropdown pipeline of 11.2 GW of late-stage opportunities sitting at the CEG level.
Of Clearway's roughly 12.9 GW of gross capacity, approximately 10.1 GW is wind, solar, and battery storage under long-term contracts with utilities, corporations, and municipalities. The remaining 2.8 GW is conventional gas generation — peaking and combined-cycle units Clearway classifies as "flexible generation." These gas assets are contractually useful because they provide dispatchable capacity, but they are not part of Clearway's growth strategy and their PPA expirations are not being renewed with new long-term gas contracts.
Key recent additions to the portfolio include: Catalina (109 MW solar, Kern County, California, acquired July 2025, PPA with an investment-grade utility through 2038); Tuolumne Wind (137 MW, Klickitat County, Washington, acquired April 2025, 15-year PPA with Turlock Irrigation District through 2040); Luna Valley Energy Center (200 MW solar, Fresno County, California, came online October 2025); and the final 113.5 MW storage phase of the Daggett Energy Center in San Bernardino County, also online in October 2025.
Clearway has signed nearly 1.2 GW of PPAs with Google across three states, making Google one of its largest corporate offtakers. The 650 MW Swan Solar project in Missouri and Goat Mountain wind repowering in Texas (targeted for 2027, backed by a 15-year hyperscaler PPA) are among the most visible data center-linked projects. In total, Clearway signed approximately 2 GW of contracts to supply data center customers in the 12 months through year-end 2025.
CEG develops and constructs projects, then offers them to Clearway Energy, Inc. once they are operating and contracted. This "dropdown" mechanism gives CWEN a visible pipeline of future CAFD without requiring it to take development-stage risk. CEG had 11.2 GW of late-stage opportunities as of the FY2025 investor update, with dropdown commitments extending through 2028. The 291 MW storage portfolio in California and Colorado (expected 2026 COD) and the 520 MW Royal Slope solar-plus-storage project in Washington are among the committed near-term dropdowns.
Many of Clearway's wind farms are approaching the end of their original PPA terms. Repowering — replacing older turbines and related components with newer, higher-output equipment — extends project life, qualifies for IRA production tax credits, and supports a new long-term contract. The Goat Mountain wind repowering in Texas (a $200 million investment, 15-year PPA with a hyperscaler, 2027 target COD) is the highest-profile example. Clearway has multiple repowerings on schedule for 2026 and 2027.
Clearway reported $1.43 billion in FY2025 operating revenues, adjusted EBITDA of $1.22 billion, and CAFD of $430 million. The company posted a consolidated net loss of $231 million on a GAAP basis, primarily reflecting depreciation and amortization on its asset base and interest expense on $7.9 billion of long-term debt. Net income attributable to Clearway common stockholders was $169 million. Total liquidity was $1.06 billion at year-end.
The company raised $600 million in senior unsecured notes due 2034 at 5.75% during 2025 and raised $50 million in Class C equity to fund acquisitions and project commitments. The quarterly dividend as of Q1 2026 is $0.4602 per share, or approximately $1.84 annualized. Clearway has grown its dividend at a mid-single-digit annual rate as CAFD has increased through dropdowns and repowering.
The 2026 CAFD guidance of $470-510 million is supported by the expected contribution of projects coming online in 2025 and early 2026, repowerings, and completed dropdown acquisitions. The longer-term 2030 CAFD per share target of $2.90-$3.10 depends on executing the CEG dropdown pipeline and the data center PPA backlog. Over $22 billion has been raised to finance 350-plus distinct projects across the Clearway platform since inception.