Clean energy: More capital will come in 2024

Spotlight: A PEI Podcast

This episode is sponsored by Nuveen Infrastructure and NextEnergy Capital

Clean energy is key to turning the world’s net-zero ambitions into a reality, an argument few would contest. So the IEA’s 2023 World Energy Investment report, which showed that clean energy investing rose at a faster rate than investment in fossil fuels in the period between 2021 and 2023, offers plenty of cause for optimism that the world is on the right path to tackling the climate crisis.

But it’s not moving fast enough, according to the United Nations, which has warned that government commitments are falling well short of what’s required to deliver net zero by 2050. It says that billions in capital must be ploughed into the energy transition to end reliance on polluting fuels.

In this episode of Spotlight, Infrastructure Investor’s Helen Lewer speaks to Joost Bergsma, global head of clean energy at Nuveen Infrastructure, and Michael Bonte-Friedheim, founder and group CEO of NextEnergy Capital, to gauge whether institutional capital’s loyalty to the agenda has wavered amid a difficult fundraising backdrop. Their conclusion? With many LPs under-allocated to infrastructure and the fundamentals for clean energy investing still sound, they expect more capital to flow into the space in 2024 and beyond. But managers with track records will have an edge in the competition for capital.