The AI boom is ushering in a new era for energy storage. As data center buildout accelerates, batteries are evolving from short-duration backup tools into larger, more flexible systems that can help bring facilities online faster and manage complex power needs. In the US in particular, a growing pipeline of projects is emerging, with batteries increasingly paired with on-site generation or used to smooth demand and unlock faster connections to the grid. So how are data centers changing the energy storage market, and what role could these systems play in the power grid of the future? On today’s show, Tom Rowlands-Rees is joined by, Caitilín McManus, a technology and innovation associate at BloombergNEF, to discuss her recently released note “Data Centers’ Energy Storage Ramp Up: Project List Grows.”

In September 2022, six months after Russia invaded Ukraine and with oil and gas prices around the world soaring, I wrote a piece entitled After Ukraine - the Great Clean Energy Acceleration, predicting that “Things are going to start moving extremely fast. The Great Energy Price Spike is going to give way to the Great Clean Energy Acceleration.” That turned out to be one of my better predictions – over the four years since the invasion, installations of wind and solar power, sales of EVs and investment in clean energy have all more or less doubled.  Even within the U.S., despite the Trump administration’s efforts, strong growth in clean energy has continued.

Global wind capacity additions hit an all-time high in 2025, marking a third straight year of record installations, according to BloombergNEF's annual Global Wind Turbine Market Shares 2025,

The New Energy Outlook presents BloombergNEF’s long-term energy and climate scenarios for the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Global wind capacity additions hit an all-time high in 2025, marking a third straight year of record installations, according to BloombergNEF's annual Global Wind Turbine Market Shares 2025,

Financial institutions have taken different approaches toward disclosing climate transition plans. The world’s largest banks and investment managers remain active in defining complete transition plans and even updating them – while complete disclosure among smaller institutions is lagging.

Energy storage is having its moment. Global deployment has set new records every year since 2014 and exceeded 100 gigawatts of annual additions for the first time in 2025. BloombergNEF expects the market to continue growing, although the ongoing conflict in the Middle East could have varied implications for the industry. The chemistries used in stationary storage are also set to evolve this decade, as more non-lithium batteries gain share.

The US energy landscape is changing quickly. Demand for artificial intelligence is driving up power demand while electric vehicle (EV) adoption slows down and enters a more complex phase. Together, these trends are reshaping how utilities, policymakers, financiers and automakers respond to emerging challenges in the energy sector.

Fusion energy is entering a new phase. After decades as a scientific pursuit, the sector is attracting billions in private and public capital, with big tech, oil companies and governments all racing to bring the first commercial plants online.

Copper is the unsung hero of the energy transition—powering everything from electric vehicles and data centers to tomorrow’s grids. But as global ambitions for electrification accelerate, copper is caught in the crossfire of structural supply shortfalls, decades of underinvestment, tariffs, and shifting industrial policies.

Importing emissions-intensive products into the European Union just got a lot more expensive. The EU’s carbon market, known as the Emissions Trading System (ETS), is already forcing domestic producers to pay for the carbon they emit. That could put them at a disadvantage compared with producers outside the bloc. In an effort to equalize this footing, the bloc has instated the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, or CBAM, under which importers must purchase certificates reflecting the embedded emissions of their products.