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- Peter Gardett
Investor demand for clean tech assets has been a leading indicator for company-level action on energy transition strategies. With higher commodity prices attracting renewed interest in the role of oil and gas companies as energy transition drivers, investors have once again reengaged with elements of the industry that were difficult to fund only months ago. What is the balance for clean tech plays versus progress on net-zero approaches at existing firms? How do legacy business models need to change to adapt to investor concerns about the pace of the energy transition? How can companies better communicate with investors on clean tech deployment strategies, and how can investors speak the language of industry operators?
Venture capital (VC) firms got burned ten years ago trying to leverage a consumer-business model into the capital-intensive energy sector. As VC firms have grown, their appetite for making larger, transformative investments has returned. Many investments are stretching the bounds of traditional capital stack structure, with asset deployment-focused investors supporting VC-backed companies, corporate VC leveraging parent company balance sheets and networks, and infrastructure financers finding new ways to work with early-stage technology firms. How do recent investments in climate and clean tech stretch the ordinary bounds of energy investing? Will institutional investors redefine the market? With private equity increasingly comfortable with technology risk and VC increasingly comfortable with scale, how do energy companies differentiate between their counterparties and competitors?
Capital allocation for the energy sector has undergone a sweeping reorientation in the past two years. The shift is more complex than moving into cleantech and out of fossil fuels, incorporating increasingly sophisticated understanding of climate risk and intense engagement with shifting value within business models. Having raised huge volumes of capital for energy transition plays in the last two years, investors and their counterparts are now deploying that money into markets and capital expenditures (Capex), presaging significant shifts across the energy ecosystem. What is the current state of energy transition investing? How does the investment horizon influence sectoral focus in analyzing investments or deploying capital? Does cleantech benefit from longer investment horizons? What level of returns are currently found in cleantech or clean infrastructure? What can we expect a decade from now?