March 2025 – During CERAWeek 2025, Galvanize Climate Solutions convened senior business and investment leaders from across the energy industry to discuss the policy environment and investment opportunities in a moment of volatility.
The conversation covered a range of topics, from load growth, to demand for firm baseload power, to the administration’s energy dominance agenda. Four key themes emerged:
- Unsurprisingly, one area of consensus was that outsized energy demand growth from AI and data centers, North American reindustrialization, building electrification, onshoring, and reinvestment in public infrastructure is real, durable, and will require more electrons and molecules.
- Industry insiders cautioned about real constraints limiting investment in expanded oil and gas production, including continued soft oil prices and multi-year wait times for equipment like new turbines for gas fired power generation.
- Alternative energy sources are becoming more affordable and investment opportunities in clean power remain attractive for patient and opportunistic capital.
- We have observed strong, bipartisan alignment on certain themes with positive implications for energy transition capital. The focus on modernizing, electrification, improved efficiency, and localizing manufacturing and industry has broad bipartisan agreement, with both sides emphasizing domestic growth and a reliable energy infrastructure.
While the attendees agreed that volatility is here for the foreseeable future, there are strong structural tailwinds propelling the energy transition. Renewables, such as wind and solar continue to get cheaper. Battery storage with innovative software is enabling management of flexible resources, further reducing system costs. Corporate demand for clean, cheap, and fast delivery of electrons continues to grow. Taken together with the thematics discussed, these dynamics suggest a path forward for investors. This path is one focused on strong fundamentals and attractive risk adjusted returns, flexible credit and capital solutions, and a disciplined strategy for engaging with the many attractive opportunities that exist.
