Author: Anela Dokso

The world is on track to invest $3.4 trillion in energy in 2026, yet the most significant shift is not the scale of spending but where the money is flowing. Electricity infrastructure, renewables, nuclear power, storage, and efficiency are attracting nearly twice as much investment as fossil fuels, reflecting how a second major energy crisis within five years is reshaping global perceptions of energy security.

According to research from the Transport & Environment (T&E), only nine of the EU’s 27 member states offer a tax advantage for electric company cars that is large enough to offset the higher upfront purchase price of an EV.

In 2025 policy frameworks across Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States collectively converged on a shared assumption that is now becoming structurally difficult to sustain: that green hydrogen production will scale fast enough to supply synthetic fuels for aviation, maritime transport, and increasingly road vehicles.

South Africa’s battery energy storage market is gaining strategic importance as renewable energy deployment accelerates, but the country’s ambitions to build a domestic manufacturing ecosystem face the same structural challenges that have weakened much of its industrial base: high energy costs, inconsistent demand, and intense competition from low-cost imports.

Lhyfe and STRABAG have signed a strategic co development agreement aimed at accelerating green hydrogen projects in Germany, with potential expansion into other European markets over time.

Germany’s battery storage market has become one of Europe’s fastest growing energy infrastructure segments, driven by volatile electricity pricing, renewable energy expansion, and increasing demand for grid flexibility. But the sector’s rapid growth has also exposed how heavily investment momentum depends on regulatory predictability rather than technology costs alone.

Power to Hydrogen has secured a binding commercial order from SINTEF for a 0.5 MW anion exchange membrane electrolyzer system that will support a carbon utilization project in Tiller, Norway.

Nordic Solar has brought its first co located Battery Energy Storage System project into commercial operation in Tiste, Lower Saxony, combining a solar installation with an 11 MW / 22 MWh battery system.

Global hydrogen investment announcements surpassed hundreds of billions of dollars over the past several years, yet the gap between announced capacity and operational deployment remains substantial. According to the International Energy Agency, only a fraction of proposed low emission hydrogen projects worldwide have reached final investment decision stage, underscoring the persistent challenges around infrastructure, financing, and industrial demand creation.

At the Juliusburg/Krukow solar park project in Germany, Vattenfall has begun using low emission steel supplied by SSAB for solar module substructures, reducing associated steel emissions by 67 percent compared with conventional steel production routes.