Clean energy has entered a new era. To reflect the fast-moving nature of the field, the scope of 2025’s RBC Capital Markets Energy Transition conference was expanded from the battery value chain - the focus of the previous two years’ events - to cover all elements of the transition.
Discussions opened with the capital and policy priorities shaping power decarbonization: grid investment, battery storage, nuclear, geothermal, and carbon removal. At the same time, mandates are accelerating innovation across industrial sectors like aviation and shipping and the hard-to-abate sectors like cement and steel, where companies are racing to develop more sustainable solutions.
Across the agenda, a set of common themes emerged - highlighting where momentum is building, and how companies and investors are navigating the next phase of energy transition.
Geopolitics is changing the conversation, but not the direction of travel
Energy security and affordability have matched, and sometimes displaced, clean energy on the agenda. Amid scarcer resources, governments, corporates, and investors are being forced to prioritize. Nuclear and geothermal are among the technologies enjoying new tailwinds in the race for reliability.
Attention is centered on how U.S. policy is shaping the pace and direction of energy transition. While fewer corporates are talking about their decarbonization efforts - so-called “green hushing” - the consensus remains that progress can and will be made.
The new “age of climate realism” is having a positive effect, focusing minds across the sector on the need to drive real value from clean energy.
Transition requires transmission
Getting power from its source to where the demand is highest or is being newly created, is a pressing issue. It is especially urgent to ensure clean energy for the rapid growth of data centers.
Consuming 4% of the electricity market today, data centers are expected to require 16% by 2040. Speed to market is often more vital for these developers than securing renewable power sources.
While some players are finding creative solutions, such as co-location with power generation, regulation is acting as a block. Permitting must become more aligned to the need for capacity in the right places.
Innovation scale-up urgently needs funds
The $90tn investment required by 2035 to fund energy transition represents a challenge for all parts of the market. But scale-up remains the ‘missing middle’ for investment. It is the area of the transition most underserved by the capital market.
RBC has recently advised on innovative structures to help de-risk energy transition investments, including forward sales, asymmetric cash flows and staged capital deployment. But as transition scales, new financing approaches will be needed to enable investment and commercial scale-ups.
The battery market regroups
The battery value chain has faced a period of heightened pressure and disruption, with the collapse of several manufacturers in Europe and the U.S. Some of the remaining players in the West have pivoted away from EV batteries towards stationary storage, attracted partly by a greater diversity of offtake opportunities.
At the same time, the EV market continues to grow, driven by cheaper EVs available, more consumer choice and a charging network that has significantly expanded across the UK and continental Europe.
Collaboration is increasingly key to success
Partnerships will be essential to unlock breakthroughs and establish the standards needed to scale new energy technologies affordably. As one speaker put it, there is a need for “multi-user, multi-utility, multi-investor” approaches.
This means working across value chains, as well as building relationships with policymakers. Keynote speaker Claire Perry O’Neill, a former U.K. Energy Minister, urged participants to present regulatory solutions to politicians, who are desperately seeking ways to unblock progress.
Consumers and voters also need to be included in the conversation. Public support requires frank dialogue to explain the climate-related choices and costs.
