Exclusive: 12 investors dish on what 2026 will bring for climate tech | TechCrunch

Exclusive: 12 investors dish on what 2026 will bring for climate tech | TechCrunch

This was supposed to be the year that climate tech died. President Donald Trump and the Republican Party have done their best to dismantle the Biden administration’s hallmark industrial and climate policies. Even the European Union has begun to ease off its most aggressive goals. And yet, as the year closes, the receipts provide a…

This was supposed to be the year that climate tech died.

President Donald Trump and the Republican Party have done their best to dismantle the Biden administration’s hallmark industrial and climate policies. Even the European Union has begun to ease off its most aggressive goals.

And yet, as the year closes, the receipts provide a different view of climate and clean energy investing in the U.S. and Europe. Instead of tanking, venture bets in the sector remained essentially flat relative to 2024, according to CTVC, far from the slide some had expected.

That resiliency is due in part to continued threat of climate change. Perhaps a bigger contributing factor is that many climate technologies have become either cheaper or better than the fossil fuel alternatives — or are on the cusp of being so.

The incredible cost reductions of solar, wind, and batteries continue to fill climate tech’s sails. Not every new technology will follow the same path. But it does provide evidence that fossil fuels aren’t invincible and ample opportunities to fund companies providing cleaner, cheaper replacements do exist.

Data centers continue to dominate

Last year, I predicted that 2025 would be the year that climate tech learned to love AI and its thirst for electricity, one that has largely borne out. It’s not entirely surprising — for the climate tech world, cheap, clean energy is its cornerstone.

Interest in data centers has only increased in the last year. And investors TechCrunch surveyed were nearly unanimous in their agreement that data centers will remain at the center of the conversation in 2026.

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“They are creating their own financial ecosystem, and there is enough actual momentum in current AI efforts that I don’t see the hyperscalerspulling back in 2026,” Tom Chi, founding partner at At One Ventures, told TechCrunch.

“I’m still hearing about an ever increasing concentration of effort and focus on data centers virtually every single day in meetings,especially with corporates,” Po Bronson, managing director at SOSV’s IndieBio, told TechCrunch.

In 2025, data centers were obsessed with securing new sources of power. But Lisa Coca, partner at Toyota Ventures, thinks they’ll adjust their focus for 2026. “The 2026 data center energy conversation is likely to shift from demand to resilience and the need to accelerate plans to decouple from the grid,” she said. Decoupling could solve some challenges that data centers face, namely in resistance from grid operators and the public, who are increasingly worried that the new loads are driving up their electricity prices.

There will still be the need for more power, though, and investors saw geothermal, nuclear, solar, and batteries as having benefited from the boom. “Zero-carbon generation is already among the cheapest sources of power, and growing demand for both grid-scale and distributed batteries is accelerating cost reductions faster than expected,” said Daniel Goldman, managing partner at Clean Energy Ventures.

Investors also acknowledged the AI bubble might burst; some voiced skepticism about whether it would drag the energy sector down with it.

“Could a bubble burst in 2026? Sure,” said Kyle Teamey, managing partner at RA Capital Planetary Health. But it’s not likely to affect infrastructure plans, he added. “The spending for 2026 is already budgeted. The train has left the station.”

Andrew Beebe, managing director at Obvious Ventures, thinks the data center bubble might burst in 2026 or early 2027, but that no such bubble exists in electricity generation. “We still need a LOT more power, and we’ll use that — no build-out bubble there… yet.”

Outside of AI and data centers, Anil Achyuta, partner at Energy Impact Partners, said reindustrialization will take more of the spotlight this year. “We need to rebuild supply chains for systems that require multiple components and complex flowsheets,” he said, citing robotics, batteries, and power electronics as examples.

The continuing quest for power

Thanks to the drumbeat of new data center announcements, energy-related startups have gotten a boost this past year, perhaps none more than those working on nuclear fission. In the last few weeks, nuclear startups have announced rounds totaling over $1 billion, leading to speculation that many will SPAC or go public through a traditional IPO in 2026.

“Nuclear everything is in vogue right now,” Teamey said.

But it will take a while for nuclear power to make a dent in electricity demand. In the meantime, tech companies and data center developers have been turning to solar and batteries as inexpensive, rapidly deployable power sources. Grid-scale batteries, in particular, have been a major beneficiary, seeing record-setting deployments in 2025. As alternative battery chemistries like sodium-ion and zinc come to market, they stand to lower costs and drive further adoption.

“We’ll see growthin 2026 with new plays on [battery] chemistry and business models.” said Leo Banchik, director at Voyager. “One of the key lessons from earlier failures was scaling gigafactories before proving demand or achieving better unit economics than the status quo. The new wave is more disciplined.”

Several investors felt geothermal would step in to help fill the void in the coming years. It helps that investors see enhanced geothermal as a relatively mature technology that’s ready to deploy at larger scales in 2026.

“Geothermal will be hot on solar’s heals in terms of new generation,” said Joshua Posamentier, managing partner at Congruent Ventures. “Natural gas assets are growing pretty linearly. There’s not much new capacity in turbine manufacturing coming online, and they’re selling everything they can. Geothermal will go geometric.”

And while AI is helping to drive demand, companies and technologies that think beyond the data center will benefit the most, said Laurie Menoud, founding partner at At One Ventures. “Data centers are one demand driver, not the whole market.”

Which startup is most likely to go public in 2026?

Not everyone was in agreement or would proffer a guess. But among those who did, several said nuclear or geothermal startups were most likely to go public, either via IPO or SPAC.

The name mentioned most was Fervo, the enhanced geothermal startup that recently raised a $462 million round. The company is widely seen as a leader in the sector and is in the midst of building a 500-megawatt development in Utah that should serve as a template for future power plants. Tapping the public markets would give the company more reserves to tackle additional projects.

Beyond data centers, investors are interested in a range of technologies and sectors, including critical minerals, robotics, and software to manage the electrical grid.

“We should be paying more attention to grid execution as a category,” said Amy Duffuor, general partner at Azolla Ventures. “The quiet winners are companies that make interconnection, planning, and deployment faster software, hardware, and supply-chain solutions that help utilities actually move projects forward.”

Resiliency and adaptation will be big themes in 2026, according to Coca of Toyota Ventures and Posamentier of Congruent Ventures. Achyuta at EIP zeroed in on one potential application: robots that bury electrical transmission lines quicker and more cheaply than humans, mitigating wildfire risks and increasing the grid’s reliability.

Beebe, at Obvious Ventures, said that EV trucking would also be an area to watch. “Oneof the biggest pieces of news of 2026 is going to be the release and specs behind the Tesla Semi. Therange and pricing of that vehicle will change that industryin ways as powerful as the Model S or 3.”

AI, of course, is likely to play a role in climate tech’s transformation. “We will see massive innovation where AI meets the physical world in 2026 on both the infrastructure and consumer app layers,” said Matt Rogers, founder at Incite and Mill. “Combining AI with smart hardware and physical infrastructure will ensure the transformation of trillion-dollar industries from manufacturing to life sciences to food systems.”

But it might also pay to keep an eye on technologies that have already been written off, said Bronson at SOSV. “When investors finally get tired of a sector and come to the conclusion it won’t pan out, that’s when the real breakthroughs finally happen,” he said.

Dive deeper

Below are the detailed comments from the investors who replied to TechCrunch’s survey, listed in alphabetical order. Click the link to jump to a specific response.

Anil Achyuta, partner at Energy Impact Partner

Data centers have dominated conversations about energy in 2025. What should we expect in 2026?

Reindustrialization beyond data centers will be a major theme. We need to rebuild supply chains for systems that require multiple components and complex flowsheets. For example, supporting next-generation robotics to address labor shortages and national security concerns will require integrated supply chains. Batteries, power electronics, fuel cells, gas turbines, and even home building are examples of end markets/technologies where parts of the value chain will need to be reindustrialized.

Another area to watch is AI-driven physical science. While companies like Zanskar (predictive AI for geothermal) and Fabric8Labs (generative cooling for data centers) have shown promise, we haven’t seen many visible breakthroughs yet. That said, the talent pool working on these problems is impressive and could lead to exciting developments.

Where is the biggest opportunity to find or place power on the grid?

Gas turbines provide firm capacity and remain the option for many large players deploying data centers. Beyond that, batteries — particularly sodium-ion — represent one of the most economical and near-term solutions at the grid-scale. I am bullish about the progress in this technology, and pairing solar with batteries (as companies like Peak Energy are doing) continues to be a highly attractive approach. Next-gen geothermal is also showing a good amount of promise but the timelines are like that of nuclear, potent but will take about a decade to bring full capacity online.

In addition, algorithmic solutions to unlock new power using existing infrastructure (e.g., Gridcare, ThinkLabs AI) and optimize workloads (e.g., Emerald AI) can further enhance grid efficiency. There are also other innovations worth noting in bringing more power, such as applying optical coating to transmission lines to reduce losses being advanced by AssetCool (an EIP portfolio company).

Which climate tech or clean energy startup is most likely to IPO in 2026?

Fervo Energy, Commonwealth Fusion, Redwood Materials would be my personal guesses, but I could be wrong.

Which technologies do you think will be ready to deploy at larger scales in 2026?

Sodium-ion batteries for grid-scale storage are already being deployed and will accelerate significantly in 2026. Another technology to watch is solid-state transformers(note Heron Power is an EIP portfolio company). The industry is advancing faster than expected and scale similarly to semiconductors, though at-scale production might take longer.

What trend or technology should we be paying more attention to?

One emerging trend is the underground build-out of transmission lines. Advances in robotics could enable a rapid, cost-effective approach that significantly reduces wildfire risk and, in turn, mitigates the substantial carbon emissions associated with such events.

Distributed power, heat, and computation are the last class of trends we are curiously tracking for 2026.

Leo Banchik, director at Voyager

Data centers have dominated conversations about energy in 2025. What should we expect in 2026?

Data centers will keep driving record power demand as AI workloads scale. Despite talk of overbuild, we’re unlikely to see much stranded capacity — as compute gets cheaper and more available, we’ll keep finding new uses for it. The interesting shift is hyperscalers differentiating between clean power sources — firm vs. intermittent, location, and additionality — rather than just headline megawatt-hours. This is already playing out in bespoke offtake deals and on-site supply strategies.

Fission and geothermal should see continued momentum from both private capital and federal support. Fusion will likely attract increased federal support as geopolitical competition intensifies, though we’re still many years away from high-capacity-factor grid-scale deployment.

Natural gas peaker alternatives will gain traction too — using new turbines and modular designs with integrated carbon capture as grids manage new peak demands from AI.

Where is the biggest opportunity to find or place power on the grid?

Solar and battery build-out will continue given their strong economics. For dispatchable, 24/7 baseload power, we’ll see growth in fission, geothermal, and peaker alternatives like modular gas turbines with integrated carbon capture. There’s also a grid-edge opportunity worth watching: large facilities procuring dedicated baseload on-site rather than adding to grid congestion.

Which climate tech or clean energy startup is most likely to IPO in 2026?

Most likely fission or geothermal. These companies have raised substantial capital and built strong offtake agreements with hyperscalers and utilities. With multibillion-dollar project pipelines and the need for continued growth financing, several could pursue public markets in 2026.

Which technologies do you think will be ready to deploy at larger scales in 2026?

Energy storage deployment is accelerating across residential, commercial, industrial (including data center backup), and grid-scale applications. Domestic supply chains, including second-life battery systems, are gaining traction for stationary storage. We’ll see growthin 2026 with new plays on chemistry and business models. One of the key lessons from earlier failures was scaling gigafactories before proving demand or achieving better unit economics than the status quo. The new wave is more disciplined.

Industrial heat pumps and thermal storage systems for steam and process heat are becoming cheaper to operate than gas boilers in many regions and applications, especially where waste heat is available and electricity prices are favorable.

We’ll also see more growth in critical minerals and battery materials projects — lithium, rare earth, magnesium refining; battery component and cell manufacturing; copper recycling — maturing with federal support as supply chain security becomes a strategic priority.

What trend or technology should we be paying more attention to?

Software and AI enabling physical infrastructure: real-time factory intelligence that improves energy efficiency and manufacturing yields, AI-based design tools that speed up product development cycles, grid management software that orchestrates intermittent renewables with storage and dispatchable power.

Companies taking a clean-sheet approach to reimagining foundational technologies — a SpaceX-style rethink of components once considered solved problems. Motor designs that eliminate rare earth dependencies, grid infrastructure like transformers with modern manufacturing techniques, advanced materials processing that significantly reduces costs while improving quality. Improvements in robotics help to enable these cost curves, making U.S. manufacturing economically viable where it wasn’t before.

Lastly, dual-use climate technologies with superior unit economics that happen to strengthen domestic supply chains. Defense and industrial policy are backing these not for climate reasons, but because they deliver cost advantages and supply security.

Andrew Beebe, managing director at Obvious Ventures

Data centers have dominated conversations about energy in 2025. What should we expect in 2026?

Data centers will again dominate. But there will be a lot more talk of a build-out bubble (in data centers, not electricity generation). Wewill live with the dual reality of too much money/debt spent on data centers, and the speculationbubble will likely burst (maybe early 2027). Butat thesame time, we’ll still need a LOT more power, and will use that — no build-out bubble there… yet.

Where is the biggest opportunity to find or place power on the grid?

For power generation: geothermal in thenear-term. Fission in the mid-term. Fusion in the 10-year-plus long-term.Foractual siting: The above technologies can be sited anywhere, but mainly western states for geothermal. Forbatteries — PJM [the grid that covers the mid-Atlantic west to parts of Illinois] and Texas.

Which climate tech or clean energy startup is most likely to IPO in 2026?

Venture-backed: Fervo

Which technologies do you think will be ready to deploy at larger scales in 2026?

Geothermal and grid-scale batteries.

What trend or technology should we be paying more attention to?

Grid software and EV trucking. Oneof the biggest pieces of news of 2026 is going to be the release and specs behind the Tesla Semi. Therange and pricing of that vehicle will change that industryin ways as powerful as the Model S or 3.

Po Bronson, managing director at SOSV’s IndieBio

Data centers have dominated conversations about energy in 2025. What should we expect in 2026?

I’m still hearing about an ever increasing concentration of effort and focus on data centers virtually every single day in meetings,especially with corporates. To some extent this is from “picks and shovels” companies who don’t want to get commoditized so they’re strategizinghow to be a bigger player/more integrated rather than just a component that’s purchased.

A related phrase I hear more frequently is power density and/or specific power (power to weight), as a load of corporates are anticipating or planning how their energy divisions branch into robotics. Duncan Turner here is our expert.

Which climate tech or clean energy startup is most likely to IPO in 2026?

I don’t have a climate tech company in my portfolio going public in 2026. Tidal Vision is targeting 2027. That’s my closest. I don’t want to opine on other VC’s portfolio companies, even though I have my feelings, because I shouldn’t open my mouth where I’m only partially informed.

Which technologies do you think will be ready to deploy at larger scales in 2026?

For larger scales in 2026, my fastest scaling companies are Tidal Vision and Voyage Foods, which has taken over a General Motors plant in Ohio.

What trend or technology should we be paying more attention to?

On what to pay more attention to, I’ll toot Duncan’s horn here again — what he’s doing with the Plasma Forge is IMHO going to be super compelling and make everyone study at night.

One last note is my consistent feeling that it’s when investors finally get tired of a sector and come to the conclusion it won’t pan out that the real breakthroughs finally happen. I learned this lesson back in 1999 when we were all wondering if the search space was going to be won byYahoo, AltaVista, Excite, Lycos, or Infoseek.

I do feel like that’s happening in my personal portfolio. I said this to AgFunder recently, but when the VC world asks about winning sectors, there’s a presumption that the sector will be so hot that there will be multiple winners. Most markets don’t have multiple winners, and the sector doesn’t win; just one company wins.

Tom Chi, founding partner at At One Ventures

Data centers have dominated conversations about energy in 2025. What should we expect in 2026?

There will be a lot more around data centers in 2026. They are creating their own financial ecosystem, and there is enough actual momentum in current AI efforts that I don’t see the hyperscalerspulling back in 2026.

Where is the biggest opportunity to find or place power on the grid?

Budgets for hyperscalers are in the $50 billion to $100 billion range, which encompasses power, chips, and much more. The chips are expensive enoughthat folks are willing to pay a bit more to get power on the grid sooner as the losses from chip depreciation are greater than most things you could incrementally add to your power scale-up budget.

Which climate tech or clean energy startup is most likely to IPO in 2026?

IPO market still a bit murky, and most folks don’t telegraph exactly when they will go public.

Which technologies do you think will be ready to deploy at larger scales in 2026?

Folks like Fervoare at an interesting inflection point. One of our portcos Provectus Algae is also at an interesting point.

What trend or technology should we be paying more attention to?

We’ve had a pretty big pendulum swing away from the more capital-intensive work in industrial decarbonization that aren’t in AI. They are still critical for our collective future, even if out of fashion for a few years.

Lisa Coca, partner at Toyota Ventures

Data centers have dominated conversations about energy in 2025. What should we expect in 2026?

In our view at Toyota Ventures, the 2026 data center energy conversation is likely to shift from demand to resilience and the need to accelerate plans to decouple from the grid.

Where is the biggest opportunity to find or place power on the grid?

We believe that the biggest investment opportunities are in firm, dispatchable, and scalable carbon-free energy. We have actively invested in technologies that support increasing baseload power, both geothermal and nuclear, through portfolio companies such as Rodatherm and Natura Resources. For critical grid flexibility, we are backing advanced, long-duration energy storage battery technologies with an investment in e-Zinc.

Which climate tech or clean energy startup is most likely to IPO in 2026?

We anticipate that nuclear power will continue to lead the way in terms of IPOs and SPACs in 2026.

Which technologies do you think will be ready to deploy at larger scales in 2026?

Challenging question since we believe it is more a function of how, and if, the capital stack continues to evolve. There is a healthy number of climate tech companies across multiple sectors that are on the cusp of deploying at a larger scale. The biggest hurdle is securing FOAK financing to de-risk the all-important step of advancing from first of a kind to nth of a kind.

What trend or technology should we be paying more attention to?

Our team expects resiliency and adaptation will continue to reign strong in 2026. The Toyota Ventures portfolio illustrates this: BurnBot addresses wildfire mitigation, ZymoChem bolsters supply chain resilience with sustainable materials, and Alora creates adaptable resource solutions.

Amy Duffuor, general partner at Azolla Ventures

Data centers have dominated conversations about energy in 2025. What should we expect in 2026?

My prediction is that the energy conversation shifts from generation of power to how fast power can actually be delivered. Interconnection timelines, permitting, and physical grid constraints continue to be a bottleneck and data centers will increasingly rely on hybrid strategies that blend grid power, storage, and demand flexibility to hit timelines.

Where is the biggest opportunity to find or place power on the grid?

One opportunity is at grid-ready sites, like places with existing transmission and substation. Anything that shortens interconnection timelines creates outsized value right now because access to the grid is scarce. Also interested in wireless transmission of power even though it’s in the early stages.

Which climate tech or clean energy startup is most likely to IPO in 2026?

There has been a lot of talk about Fervo Energy…!

Which technologies do you think will be ready to deploy at larger scales in 2026?

Long-duration energy storage technology companies, which will move from initial pilots to demos to repeatable deployments. We’re particularly excited about our portfolio company Noon Energy.

What trend or technology should we be paying more attention to?

We should be paying more attention to grid execution as a category. The quiet winners are companies that make interconnection, planning, and deployment faster software, hardware, and supply-chain solutions that help utilities actually move projects forward.

Daniel Goldman, managing partner at Clean Energy Ventures

Data centers have dominated conversations about energy in 2025. What should we expect in 2026?

We expect to see an acceleration of deal making in the data center/hyperscaler space consisting of the following:

  1. Structured power off take agreements with a mix of behind-the-meter and utility-related infrastructure to bring optimization around pricing and reliability;
  2. More action at the federal, ISO/RTO, and state level to accelerate deployment of energy assets while balancing tariff structures that avoid burdening voting consumers with increased costs;
  3. M&A in the technology optimization area, including resources such as geothermal, nuclear, critical minerals and downstream hardware and software products enabling the digitalization, decarbonization and distribution of energy supplies and load management, a key area of our focus and that which venture capital in general is quite focused on.

While we don’t expect an overall “bust cycle” for data center and hyperscaler development activities, we do expect some rationalization of development and implementation of efficiency options to reduce capacity needs.

Where is the biggest opportunity to find or place power on the grid?

The greatest near-term opportunity — and challenge — lies in improving the grid itself. Grid modernization through digitalization, decarbonization, and decentralization will unlock cost savings, optimize existing infrastructure, and better integrate significant distributed energy resources — probably not saying anything new here. Zero-carbon generation is already among the cheapest sources of power, and growing demand for both grid-scale and distributed batteries is accelerating cost reductions faster than expected.

We expect this trend to continue despite recent policy shifts in the IRA and there are hundreds of venture capital-backed companies that can have a material impact on the grid as they scale-up and see more adoption rates in the market. Disruption is here!

Which climate tech or clean energy startup is most likely to IPO in 2026?

Factorial appears to be a leading candidate following its plans to de-SPAC in 2026. Its trajectory illustrates that companies with strong customer traction in large markets, clear cost and performance advantages, and rapidly scaling revenues are well-positioned for the public markets. (This SPAC market contrasts with the 2020 one where entrants such as QuantumScape did not have meaningful revenues and perhaps were ill-prepared for public markets.)

Watch out for more companies hitting public markets on hype, instead of good fundamentals.

Beyond Factorial, several companies in energy storage, generation, and critical minerals are approaching scalable revenue levels to access low-cost of capital public markets (a real benefit), though in the minerals sector we may see growth in mergers and acquisitions precede any public offerings in 2026.

Which technologies do you think will be ready to deploy at larger scales in 2026?

Projects in energy storage, sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), critical minerals, and material manufacturing facilities across the energy supply chain will see significant investment in the U.S., with manufacturing tax credits and attractive market opportunities still available notwithstanding federal policy headwinds.

In 2025, we extensively evaluated and developed new risk transfer solutions for FOAK project developers. We see commercial lenders and private credit starting to lean more heavily into this space with the support of insurance underwriting and catalytic capital. We expect to see more projects and more debt financing for early commercialization, which up untilthispoint has only trickled in. This is the key enabler of the greater scale we need across the industry.

What trend or technology should we be paying more attention to?

For western markets to compete with China’s manufacturing and increasingly innovation prowess, financial innovation is CRITICAL. Global markets need to deploy $3 trillion to $9 trillion per year through 2050 on climate related technologies and implementation of projects if we hope to reduce global temperatures and compete in these markets internationally. Global spending on climate related investment was only $2 trillion in 2024 and is on a path for a similar amount in 2025.

To increase the rate of deployment, we must convince public and private investors that the risk-return balance is favorable to deploy capital across the climate capital stack — early-stage venture, growth-stage venture, private equity, commercial lending and private credit, and infrastructure. Our sector is not attracting enough capital; in simple terms, risks need to decline or returns need to increase.

We see opportunitiesto userisk-sharing mechanisms to optimize capital stacks andlower the cost of capital for new technology projects, which also brings them down the cost curve faster. Promising solutions include technology and performance risk insurance, surety bonds for managing construction risks, poolingoff-take agreements among buyer groups (e.g., hyperscalers for clean power or airlines for SAF), filling gaps in construction financing, and more. Clean Energy Ventures’ spent time during 2025 identifying new risk transfer solutions working closely with our counterparts in the finance and insurance sectors. We believe 2026 will see more innovative financing solutions enabling faster scaling of climate technologies.

We should also be paying very close attention to cost curves. The impact of AI is showing up but not being widely reported in climate tech. Inside large companies and small startups the benefits of AI are driving costs down, allowing faster innovation at complex facilities and in supply chains. This is apparent in chemicals, mining and refining, power generation and grid optimization, manufacturing (steel, cement), recycling and waste management, and more.

We are only at the embryonic stage of seeing the impact of AI on the cost curves in a wide range of commodities and industries. As we talk about the upward impact on power prices driven by AI infrastructure requirements, we need to keep in mind that AI will also radically transform industries globally and reduce cost of production.

Laurie Menoud, At One Ventures

Data centers have dominated conversations about energy in 2025. What should we expect in 2026?

Yes, there’s been massive excitement around everything connected to data centers, energy generation, storage, transmission, cooling. But from a VC perspective, building and scaling data centers isn’t a startup timeline. It’s a decade-long struggle of permits, substations, and grid upgrades. To put numbers on it, hyperscale data centers take 3 to 6 years to permit and connect in the US today. In some markets, interconnection alone can exceed 5 to 7 years. So in 2026, I expect to see continued traction for energy companies that are not only tied to data centers but can expand into commercial and industrial use cases and front-of-the-meter applications. Data centers are one demand driver, not the whole market.

Related to this is the supply of critical metals, which I continue to be very focused on: mining, extraction, refining, and recycling. This is critical not only for data centers (especially copper), but also for EV batteries with lithium, nickel, manganese, and cobalt.

Where is the biggest opportunity to find or place power on the grid?

In places where thermal (coal and gas) and nuclear plants are being retired, because those sites already have high-capacity grid connections. That makes deploying new clean generation dramatically faster. In the U.S. alone, more than 60 GW of coal capacity has retired since 2015, and another 40+ GW is scheduled to retire by 2030. Each retirement frees up a transmission node that took decades to build. Reusing that interconnection is often the difference between a 2-year vs. an 8-year project timeline. And that’s where you could install next-gen nuclear reactors, like Stellaria, that cut long-lived waste, capex, opex, deployment time, and extends fuel use, or geothermal energy like Factor2 Energy, utilizing underground CO2 reservoirs for lower constraintson deployment location.

The same is true of industrial sites (chemicals, steel, refineries) that already have oversized grid connections. These sites are trying to expand production, and add storage, and they already have one of the hardest problems solved: interconnection. If you want to electrify heavy industry quickly, you go where the grid already exists.

Which climate tech or clean energy startup is most likely to IPO in 2026?

No one can really know, but the battery recycling and circular critical materials subsector is one I’d watch closely. Lithium, nickel, and cobalt prices are extremely sensitive to geopolitics, and recycling provides a lower-risk, domestic supply for the U.S.

Which technologies do you think will be ready to deploy at larger scales in 2026?

Relectrifyis deploying their battery systems at commercial production scale in 2026with a cumulative capacity of 100 MWh. They use cell-level semiconductor circuitry to individually control battery cells at high frequency, directly producing an alternating current waveform. No need for an inverter anymore, which is adirect win on CAPEX, improved usable lifetime battery capacity, and lower OPEX by identifying and replacing malfunctioning cells with precision. It’s happening now.

And overall, grid-scale energy storage beyond lithium, driven by both AI data centers and renewable growth. Without it, you simply can’t run 24/7 clean power outside of nuclear and hydro. Globally, stationary storage is projected to grow from ~45 GWh in 2023 to hundreds of GWs by 2030. Some of the new technologies are already ready today.

Battery recycling and closed-loop supply chains with automakers (recycled lithium, nickel, cobalt, and copper going back into new batteries) are also already scaling. 2026 is about acceleration.Ascend Elementshas already built the largest lithium-ion battery recycling facility in NorthAmerica, and has now achieved the first production of recycled lithium carbonate. Imports make up the majority of the US supply of lithium carbonate today, mostly from Argentina and Chile. If you can secure your metal supply with lower-cost recycled content, isn’t that a big win?

What trend or technology should we be paying more attention to?

Companies likeChemfinity, that could make domestic metal refining at cost parity with China, and anything tied to mining, extraction, refining, and recycling of critical metals for data centers and EVs. Copper is THE metal for data centers. It’s used in power cables, busbars, transformers, cooling loops. A single gigawatt of data-center capacity requires on the order of tens of thousands of tonnes of copper. And about 40% – 45% of the world’s copper refining is in China, followed by Chile. It’s the same geographical structure as lithium refining and battery precursor chemistry. People talk about energy security. This is what it actually looks like.

Joshua Posamentier, managing partner at Congruent Ventures

Data centers have dominated conversations about energy in 2025. What should we expect in 2026?

Push for growth will continue but attention will shift from flashy gigawatt announcements to construction, commissioning, and dealing with the brutal realities of interconnect and permitting delays. The result will be a huge upwelling of “bring your own generation” and “demand flexibility.”

The age of ASSPs/ASICs will begin in earnest for AI data centers. GPUs will continue to grow, but the rate will taper in favor of more specialist chips that are far more efficient, especially for inference loads. This will start decoupling data center power consumption from token generation.

The unit economics of the marquee foundational AI shops will leak. They will not look good. But they will convince investors to support them through their trough of upside down unit economics until they achieve positive unit economics, which will come sooner than expected. But the shine will be off: These will fall into a different bucket than high margin SaaS companies from prior bubbles.

Data centers will become far better grid participants through flexibility, load shaping, and power quality, and they will be rewarded with far faster interconnect times than other big loads — the more tech they adopt, the faster they’ll get connected.

We’ll see the first off-grid world-scale data center NTP [notice to proceed, or a letter telling a contractor to begin work]. We’ll also see more NIMBY pushback on proximate data centers because of everything from power costs to size to water use.

Where is the biggest opportunity to find or place power on the grid?

Nuclear fusion! I think we’ll see the first net gain by analysis (i.e., deuterium fusion where it would be Q>1 if it were tritium) in a startup reactor.

Geothermal will be hot on solar’s heels in terms of new generation with linearly deploying gas assets.

Which climate tech or clean energy startup is most likely to IPO in 2026?

SPAC or IPO? Lots in the pipe, pun intended.

Which technologies do you think will be ready to deploy at larger scales in 2026?

Geothermal for electricity and district heating. Friction is still way too high for single site geothermal heat loops to scale much faster than today. Thermal energy storage (load shifting) for industrial applications.

What trend or technology should we be paying more attention to?

Robotics (not the humanoid kind) are taking over a huge number of labor-intensive industries; they will impact many industrial, agriculture, waste, and manufacturing operations in 2026.

Logistics and manufacturing efficiency: electrification, efficiency, onshoring, and AI are pushing on emissions from half of the economy and these sectors are economic, not impact buyers. Give them long-term certainty on lower costs vs. conventional fuels, for example, and you’ll have buyers. This is everything from electrified autonomous trucking to electric autonomous rail and dark terminals.

Resilience technology is going to really get going. Insurance costs (due to climate risk) are outpacing every other cost for homeowners and impacting commercial operations. Businesses and individuals are going to aggressively begin to invest in resilience in the face of accelerating climate change and extreme weather but also aging infrastructure and a shift from centralized to distributed resource paradigms.

Matt Rogers, founder at Incite and Mill

Data centers have dominated conversations about energy in 2025. What should we expect in 2026?

Data centers will serve as factories for the next phase of AI innovation powering America’s society and economy. I think local governments will step up more in 2026 and challenge hyperscalers to deliver solutions that are more in line with community needs and municipal partnership that allows for swifter construction. Energy affordability is top of mind, and we really need to reverse the trend of 2025 of rising costs.

Where is the biggest opportunity to find or place power on the grid?

The call is coming from inside the house in 2026. In other words, consumers have more impact than anyone thinks. Decentralized infrastructure solutions, including rooftop solar, energy storage, and distributed energy resources, like heat pumps and smart thermostats, are available today. Households can turn them on swiftly, cost-effectively, and without the major disruptions to grids across the nation we are seeing today. It’s faster to permit than building new centralized power plants.

If enough people adopt these approachable solutions, America’s grid has a better shot at handling the increased capacity from the data center AI boom.

There’s also an alignment opportunity hiding in plain sight: AI pioneers and Big Tech companies want a faster, more predictable path to build. Local and state governments want affordability, economic investment, and resilience. Communities are actually in a unique position to trade swift permitting and flexible construction timelines for economic rejuvenation, tax revenue, and job creation from the private sector.

By enabling more efficient households with lower utility bills, hyperscalers can access the energy they need to operate AI data centers. Much faster. That’s why this isn’t a moonshot. The opposite, in fact.

Which technologies do you think will be ready to deploy at larger scales in 2026?

Mill. We’ll deploy more Food Recyclers, and on a different scale, than ever before. We’re planning more partnerships to encourage more households, businesses, and communities to view food as something to return back to the food system rather than leave for weeks in dumpsters and then years in landfills.

Robotics is going to attract massive funding and private sector attention in 2026. Simultaneously, builders will move away from the hype around humanoid models towards functional robots designed to handle specific tasks and make life easier. The future of robotics will look more like Roomba than your neighbor Rhonda, which actually bodes well from both an affordability and technology risk perspective.

What trend or technology should we be paying more attention to?

We will see massive innovation where AI meets the physical world in 2026 on both the infrastructure and consumer app layers. Combining AI with smart hardware and physical infrastructure will ensure the transformation of trillion-dollar industries from manufacturing to life sciences to food systems. In order for AI to power the future without tanking grids or negatively impacting communities, it must be paired with physical hardware that solves problems and makes everyday life better for people. We’ll benefit as much from an AI smartphone as we will with an AI-powered waste facility.

Kyle Teamey, managing partner at RA Capital Planetary Health

Data centers have dominated conversations about energy in 2025. What should we expect in 2026?

I think data centers will still dominate in 2026. But I guess I’m a little jaded on this stuff because I was in the last AI cycle —it’s a lot of the same conversation. But the level of investment is orders of magnitude greater. The level of attention is orders of magnitude greater. And so it’s going to take a long while for this to shake out one way or another.

The spending for 2026 is already budgeted. The train has left the station. Could a bubble burst in 2026? Sure. But that would take a while to be manifested. It’s going to take months to a year perhaps to to really be manifested. You’d have to shut it off midstream and try to claw your money back. That’s pretty hard to do.

Where is the biggest opportunity to find or place power on the grid?

This has been talked about a lot, but the data use, the requirements for data, it scales fairly exponentially. Power it scales quite linearly. As a consequence, it’s going to take a long while, I think, for the physical world to catch up to the data demand side. It’s really all of the above. If you can if you can do anything in power generation, power storage, transmission, distribution, if you can improve grid operations — the list goes on and on and on.

A bull market in electricity like this, I don’t know how long it’s been, maybe like a century? And so it really, at least to us, it looks like it’s all of the above. Lots and lots of interesting opportunities within that. We’ve seen some companies go public in the like the last 12, 18 months. We probably will see more. I think it’s fair to to think that there will be.

Which climate tech or clean energy startup is most likely to IPO in 2026?

I think power generation is gonna see more public companies in 2026, for sure. There could be a wide, wide variety there. Nuclear everything is in vogue right now. We’ll likely see more of those. Geothermal, we’ll definitely see some of those. And you’ve already got a bunch of interesting players who are in project development and implementation, some of those could go public as well. It’s not just the tech companies, but the folks up and down the value chain.

Which technologies do you think will be ready to deploy at larger scales in 2026?

Nuclear fission companies in particular. That could be a bubble for sure, but if some of these companies start succeeding and start getting uh projects built. Every few years these opportunities pop up, and it makes sense that people take advantage of those opportunities to raise some additional cash and grow more rapidly.

What trend or technology should we be paying more attention to?

There haven’t been any technologies I’ve seen recently where I’m like, ‘Oh wow that’s going to change the world, everyone should be looking at that.’ I do think it is more about scaling for a lot of these right now. If you can hit scale quickly, it’s an amazing opportunity.

If you look at the the various trends, it’s not just the manufacturing demand. The other driver is the regionalization of everything, which is driving demand for labor, for resources. Fill in the blank, there’s demand for it.

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