Following last night’s election, control over the Federal Government of the U.S. will change. The new administration has different opinions about energy and climate – it will diverge from many of the policy priorities of the Biden-Harris administration. But the power of economics, prices, and markets cannot be repealed. As investors, that is the world we live in, and that is why we remain confident in the inevitability and opportunity of the energy transition.
We do not invest at Galvanize based on hope for policies. We invest based on fundamentals and aim to take advantage of market dislocations. Elections change the noise around the energy transition, but not the signal.
We believe that the energy transition is the bedrock of our new economy – and is intrinsically linked to other major themes, like industrial policy and the rise of AI. Clean energy is big business – and it is winning in the markets based on costs and product market fit. Consider the following signals:
- New technologies are beating old commodities: Over the past four years, solar panel prices are down by 60%. Solar sales are up 4-fold to 600 GW and EV sales up 5-fold to 17 million. Battery prices halved in China last year.
- Competition and security: In a fracturing world where 80% of people live in fossil fuel importers, clean energy provides energy security. The rise of border carbon adjustments and supply chain diversification efforts further solidifies the clean energy economy.
- Unlocking energy abundance: Supply chain shifts and the rise of AI are driving upward revisions in energy demand, especially in advanced economies. The value of firm, flexible, rapidly deployable energy solutions is only increasing.
- Rise of the rest: In recent years, China has accounted for 60% of the deployment of cleantech, and a larger share of production. New markets are emerging as relevant – both as hubs of deployment and manufacturing, and as capital providers – from Latin America to South/Southeast Asia to the Gulf and beyond.
- Events don’t change secular trends: The first Trump administration did not reverse the clean energy transition. Take a look at some evidence:
- Energy transition investment in the US more than doubled from $70 billion in 2016 to $180 billion in 2020
- Global renewable energy asset finance went from $153 billion to $184 billion annually
- In the US, renewable energy asset finance nearly doubled from ~$16 billion in 2016 to ~$29 billion in 2020
- The Invesco solar ETF was up ~300% (vs S&P 500 up 54%) under the Trump administration.
This process of rapid transformation did not only occur during the previous four years, it was also taking hold during the Trump administration, and well before that.
Now is a truly exciting and dynamic point in time in the history of this transition. We expect a Trump presidency to create opportunities and dislocations in the market, and we are committed to doing our part to accelerating the energy transition across asset classes and geographies.
– Katie, Tom, and Secretary Kerry