Earlier this year, the Lux Energy Team conducted an analysis to highlight the hottest energy topics and which companies rose to the top during an event-filled 2019 in the energy transition. With the pace of activity picking up, we felt it would be valuable to provide a midterm update to start off the second half of the year. In this blog, we identify the best tech startups in the energy space that we interviewed and highlight the most important industry developments in the first six months of the year. See the following blog post for more details on the four new storylines launched this year.
Out of all the companies the Energy Team profiled, 26 were rated “Positive” or “Strong Positive” across six topics.
The team has also been tracking the energy space, covering more than 300 individual developments during the first half of the year. These innovation-related events span from partnerships and investments to new research and new factories and include information about the companies involved and our own takes on the developments.
To highlight the "truly disruptive" and "very important" developments so far this year, we have selected the most read and discussed news items.
- Germany passes $10.2 billion hydrogen strategy and stimulus plan.
The German Ministry of Economy and Energy unveiled the country's national hydrogen strategy, calling for 5 GW of new green hydrogen capacity and dedicating $8 billion toward the development of the capacity. - Negative oil prices show that it is in the interest of the oil industry to diversify. The negative price for May WTI futures was probably an anomaly, but it was also a symptom of bigger underlying issues that the industry must address.
- Tesla opts for LFP over NCA in the Chinese market. Doing so insulates Tesla against a nickel feedstock shortage and helps it enter the world's largest and most competitive BEV market.
- Shell consortium unveils 10 GW offshore wind-to-hydrogen project in North Sea. The NortH2 project will be jointly developed by Shell, the Port of Groningen, and Gasunie. The project will begin operations in 2030 and eventually scale up to 10 GW in 2040.
- Neste to deploy Sunfire's electrolyzer at Rotterdam biorefinery. The 2.6 MW electrolyzer will be the world's largest solid-oxide electrolyzer and will be used for the production of renewable diesel.
- Singapore and Japan consortium to evaluate delivering carbon-free energy to Singapore with LOHC. The consortium will consider the technical and commercial promise of Chiyoda's toluene-based LOHC to import renewable hydrogen.
- Volvo and Daimler form joint venture on fuel cell development for trucks. Volvo is set to acquire a 50% stake in Daimler's fuel cell business, valuing the operations at €1.2 billion. Although fuel cell vehicles have failed to see significant uptake in the light-duty vehicle market, decarbonizing heavy-duty applications like trucking is more challenging.
- Maersk, Ørsted, and other Danish companies embark on full-scale electrofuels production by 2030. In what is likely the most high-profile and large-scale electrofuels project to date, a total of 1.3 GW of electrolyzer capacity is planned to come online by 2030 to produce 250,000 MT of fuels.
Another major development in the first half of the year has also obviously been COVID-19. You can find all the relevant resources from Lux Research on our COVID-19 here. This page which contains a wide range of research on the impact of COVID-19 on innovation, industries, and how the world will likely respond in the coming months. A few pieces we like to highlight specifically include an insight on the industries it will help create, a report on the impact on tech innovation, and a corresponding webinar on preparing for the aftershocks.
FURTHER READING:
- Free Access to our COVID-19 Resources
- Blog: The Next Chapter: Four Storylines Driving the Energy Transition
- Blog: Half the New Cars Sold in 2035 Will be Electric
- Blog: We Have a Serious Lithium Problem
- Blog: A Renewable Proxy for the Global Oil Trade
- Blog: Why Hydrogen and Why Now?
- Blog: Can the World Make the Chemicals it Needs Without Oil?
