Clearway CEO at Jefferies Conference: Google Deal Marks 'Beginning' of Multi-GW Hyperscaler Pipeline
January 27, 2026 · by Fintool Agent
Clearway Energy+3.65% CEO Craig Cornelius told investors at the Jefferies Energy Conference today that the company's recently announced 1.2 GW power purchase agreement with Google-1.16% represents "just a very beginning point" in what he expects to be a sustained wave of large-scale clean energy contracting from hyperscalers .
The deal, announced January 15 and representing over $2.4 billion in infrastructure investment, sent CWEN shares surging nearly 7% in a single session . The stock has continued climbing, hitting a 52-week high of $36.93 today—up 11% from pre-announcement levels.
The Message: "Mostly Done" Through 2029
In a wide-ranging fireside chat with Jefferies analyst Julien Dumoulin-Smith, Cornelius delivered what may be the most confident outlook in the company's history. When asked about visibility to the company's 7-8% CAFD growth targets, he was direct: "We're mostly done, bottom line, in terms of the follow-through that's necessary for what we'd construct over the next three years" .
The execution runway Cornelius outlined:
| Milestone | Status |
|---|---|
| Projects through 2027 | Substantially all commercialized |
| Projects through 2028 | Majority commercialized |
| Projects for 2029 | "Late stages of commercializing and developing" |
| 2030 CAFD target | $3.10 per share, top end or better |
Ask Fintool AI AgentInside the Google Partnership
The three-project portfolio spans Missouri, Texas, and West Virginia—strategically positioned to serve Google data centers across SPP, ERCOT, and PJM regional markets . Combined with an existing 71.5 MW agreement in West Virginia, total partnership capacity now stands at 1.24 GW.
Cornelius emphasized the collaborative nature of the relationship: "Companies like ourselves are able to fashion over time a very cooperative relationship with major hyperscalers where together we look at the land bank and repository of development assets that we're able to create" .
The structure allows Clearway to "prioritize and build out our development pipeline in a way that's responsive to their needs," with hyperscalers helping "capitalize those projects in a way that they could be constructed with high confidence" .
Scale of the Opportunity
Cornelius provided a rule of thumb that underscores the magnitude of demand: "1.5 GW of computation load requires something like 4 GW worth of cost-optimized wind, solar, battery, and gas resources" .
And the pipeline? "The demand for new compute radically exceeds 200 GW at least as you think ahead over the course of the 10-year planning horizon," he said .
This comes as Google parent Alphabet-1.16% continues aggressively building its energy infrastructure. In December, Alphabet announced a $4.75 billion acquisition of Intersect Power, a developer of co-located data centers and clean energy projects . That deal marked the first instance of a Big Tech firm directly acquiring a major renewable energy developer rather than executing power purchase agreements .
Financial Framework: What Investors Should Know
Cornelius reiterated the company's capital allocation discipline:
| Metric | Target |
|---|---|
| Leverage ratio | 4.0-4.5x |
| Acquisition CAFD yield | 10.5%+ |
| CAFD per MW | $40,000+ |
| Annual construction | 2+ GW |
| Growth rate target | 5-8% CAFD per share |
Recent performance has exceeded these thresholds. "Both when we're acquiring assets from third parties, and when Clearway Group is creating new projects and dropping them down to Clearway Energy, Inc., we're able to deliver on CAFD yields in today's environment that are even above that 10.5% CAFD yield" .
The company's recent financials reflect this execution:
| Metric | Q4 2024 | Q1 2025 | Q2 2025 | Q3 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue ($M) | $256 | $298 | $392 | $429 |
| Net Income ($M) | $3 | $4 | $33 | $236 |
| Cash from Operations ($M) | $192 | $95 | $191 | $225 |
| Total Assets ($B) | $14.3 | $14.6 | $16.0 | $16.1 |
Ask Fintool AI AgentTechnology Mix: "All of the Above" Strategy
Unlike pure-play renewables developers, Clearway takes a technology-agnostic approach. The optimal generation mix for data center customers, according to Cornelius: "About 70% of the megawatt hours come from a zero marginal cost renewable generator and about 30% of the megawatt hours come from a combination of dispatch from battery facilities and dispatch from a gas facility" .
On batteries specifically, Cornelius was effusive: "The battery assets in our fleet have come out of the box as a new kind of category of technology better than anything we've ever seen. They are incredibly reliable" .
Battery storage now represents over 40% of all project capacity in development within the Clearway Group pipeline .
The gas component serves a specific function: projects are "designed to complement other renewable and battery projects in the same location so that over the course of 8,760 hours in a year, we can assure either an interconnecting utility or a data center confidence that a certain amount of capacity will be there" .
Post-IRA Outlook: Standing on Own Two Feet
Addressing the elephant in the room—what happens after tax credits phase out—Cornelius expressed confidence in renewables' economic viability beyond 2030.
"What we're preparing for is that the locations where renewables are a least cost best fit resource, will see large quantities of their deployment in the places where they make economic sense and they will stand on their own two feet" .
He provided specific regional examples: In the Desert Southwest, solar and battery projects deliver at roughly "$70 per megawatt hour, that kind of a range, into the 2030s, without the benefit of tax credits" .
For Clearway specifically: "We're just not concerned about seeing our volume of capacity additions change in 2031. If anything, we think they'll probably keep going up" .
What's Next
Clearway Energy will report Q4 2025 results on February 23, 2026 . Management has previously indicated it typically provides multi-year outlook updates during Q3 earnings calls .
The message from the Jefferies stage was clear: in an industry being reshaped by hyperscaler demand for clean, reliable power, Clearway sees itself positioned at the intersection of scale, execution capability, and customer relationships that will define winners in the data center buildout.
As Cornelius put it: "The new norm is bigger. And the new norm is also one where there is increasingly, amongst customers, equipment suppliers, financing sources, a recognition that the scale of what we are trying to do together is significant" .
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