Utilities are still touting their data center pipelines, according to a Utility Dive review of more than two dozen earnings calls, but they are also contending with growing equipment backlogs and public backlash that has analysts questioning their ability to execute on all their projects and recover costs.

“Growth remains intact, but affordability is emerging as key constraint,” Shelby Tucker, a U.S. power and utility sector analyst with TD Cowen, wrote in a note last week.

“Increasingly, the objective is not simply to avoid customer harm, but to demonstrate that growth can benefit incumbent customers through fixed-cost dilution, improved system utilization, and targeted regulatory structures,” he said. “[T]he conversation is shifting from identifying growth opportunities to ensuring investments can be recovered in a manner acceptable to customers and policymakers.”

“Future growth will be judged not by the magnitude of investment, but by how effectively utilities allocate costs, protect existing customers, and demonstrate tangible customer benefits alongside shareholder returns,” he added.

Those pressures are less of a concern for the companies that design and build power infrastructure, with the three major gas turbine makers announcing backlogs from 35 to 116 GW as they increase manufacturing capacity.

You’ll find the most important takeaways from the latest round of federal filings and investor calls in our 2026 second-quarter coverage below.