CWEN · NYSE Arca · United States
investor.clearwayenergy.comFinancials as of FY2025
Holds wind and solar power plants built by NRG Energy and pays nearly all the cash they earn directly to shareholders as dividends.
Clearway Energy holds a portfolio of operating wind and solar plants and passes the electricity revenues through to shareholders as dividends, skipping the corporate income tax layer that a normal power company would pay. That tax treatment is only permitted as long as Clearway distributes nearly all of its earnings and never develops projects itself, so every new wind farm or solar plant in the portfolio must be purchased from its sponsor, NRG Energy, rather than built internally. The contracted cash flows that support those dividends are stable because utilities like Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric agreed to buy the electricity at fixed prices under 15-to-20-year agreements — but those agreements were priced assuming federal production and investment tax credits remain in place, so if Congress eliminated those credits, NRG Energy's projects would pencil out at worse economics, shrinking the pipeline of assets Clearway is legally allowed to buy. Because internal development is permanently off the table, the only thing separating steady growth from a standstill is whether NRG Energy keeps building and selling — a supply chain Clearway cannot control.
How does this company make money?
The primary source of income is fixed-price electricity sold under 15-to-20-year contracts with utilities — the price is set at signing and does not change with the market. A smaller portion of electricity is sold into the ERCOT, PJM, and CAISO wholesale markets at whatever the spot price happens to be on a given day. For the first ten years a plant operates, federal production tax credits add an additional payment for every megawatt-hour the plant generates, boosting returns during that window.
What makes this company hard to replace?
Utilities that signed long-term power purchase agreements with the yieldco are locked into specific performance guarantees and transmission rights that would take years of renegotiation to transfer to a different power supplier. Shareholders who want to exit face tax consequences from selling their positions that make walking away more costly than staying, even if the dividend disappoints.
What limits this company?
NRG Energy's development pipeline is the only legal source of new assets, so the yieldco can only grow as fast as NRG Energy builds and chooses to sell. If NRG Energy slows down — because of permitting delays, financial pressure, or a shift in strategy — the yieldco has no way to go find capacity somewhere else. The tax rules that make the structure work also make that ceiling impossible to get around.
What does this company depend on?
NRG Energy must keep developing new wind and solar projects and be willing to sell them to the yieldco, or growth stops entirely. Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric must keep honoring their long-term purchase contracts, since those agreements are what make the cash flows predictable. ERCOT must maintain grid access in Texas wind corridors, and CAISO and PJM must keep operating the wholesale markets where some electricity is sold at spot prices. Federal production tax credits and investment tax credits must remain available, because NRG Energy priced every asset it sold to the yieldco assuming those credits would be collected.
Who depends on this company?
Institutional investors who bought shares specifically for the dividend would face income shortfalls if cash distributions fell. Utilities locked into long-term purchase agreements would lose contracted renewable power if the generation assets went offline and would need to find replacement supply. ERCOT grid operators in Texas would face reduced wind generation exactly when summer electricity demand peaks.
How does this company scale?
Each new wind or solar plant added to the portfolio produces its own contracted cash flows, which increase the total dividend the yieldco can pay while spreading fixed overhead costs across more megawatts. What does not scale is the supply of new assets — because the tax rules block internal development, growth can never outrun NRG Energy's willingness and ability to build and sell projects.
What external forces can significantly affect this company?
If Congress reduces or eliminates federal production tax credits or investment tax credits, the economics that NRG Energy used to price assets into the yieldco weaken, shrinking the pipeline of projects worth buying. FERC transmission planning decisions control whether new wind capacity in regions like ERCOT's competitive renewable energy zones can actually reach the grid. State renewable portfolio standards shape how much long-term contracted demand utilities need to fill — if states weaken those standards, utilities have less reason to sign new long-term purchase agreements.
Where is this company structurally vulnerable?
The pass-through tax status rests entirely on a federal tax-code rule, not a permanent legal right. If Congress changed or eliminated the rules that let yieldcos avoid corporate income tax, NRG Yield would either have to start paying that tax on every dollar it distributes or tear apart its relationship with NRG Energy and rebuild it from scratch. Either way, the one thing that makes the yieldco more attractive than a regular power company owning the same plants — the missing tax layer — would disappear.
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Sign inStructural observations derived from financial data, industry benchmarks, and supply chain position.
Companies that share the same coordination system — how they create, deliver, or capture value.
Companies that share active interpretations — structural patterns currently present in both stocks.
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