Introduction
In an effort to collaborate with the private sector, provide a common fact base on key challenges, and establish a live tool and forum to update the fact base and pathways, the US Department of Energy (DOE) has released a series of reports on various technologies. As of writing this review of the reports, I have read and processed 11 of the 11 currently published reports. Each report maps to a single technology or a suite of technologies that correspond to a specific sector. The reports all follow a relatively similar structure: overview, current state of technologies and markets, pathway to liftoff, challenges to liftoff and potential solutions, and metrics to track progress.
The reports that I have read to prepare for a literature review of how the DOE views technology commercialization include:
Advanced Nuclear • Carbon Management • Clean Hydrogen • Geothermal Heating and Cooling • Industrial Decarbonization • Innovative Grid • Long Duration Energy Storage (LDES) • Next-Generation Geothermal Energy • Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAFs) • Offshore Wind • Virtual Power Plants (VPPs)
As I was reading the reports (Feb-April 2025), the DOE has been active in updating various reports as new material, corporate updates, or forecasts are made (including a new report on virtual power plants the day after I finished the old report!). Therefore, the synthesis of these reports is made as of the writing date. The clean technology market is ever changing and I want to make sure that I am setting a date of review to avoid this review being used for future analysis after any major updates occur that may date this review.
My experience with FOAK problem is close to heart. I was previously employed at Hydrostor, a long-duration energy storage developer focused on compressed air energy storage. While there, I was involved in the commercialization process and securing offtake for the Silver City Energy Storage Centre and securing a conditional commitment from the DOE for the Willow Rock Energy Storage Center. Currently employed at an independent power producer (IPP) focused on solar, wind, batteries, and hydro (all opinions my own), there is a clear distinction between the clear path to financing that these technologies have compared with a somewhat nascent compressed air solution.
The purpose of this review is to help understand what it will take for commercialization of these mostly emerging, but some existing, technologies. How can the US, and the world at large, work to drive down costs, increase deployment, and enable these technologies to penetrate the market to drive emissions reductions? These technologies are predominantly infrastructure projects that will require large sums of investment to get built. Unfortunately, the risk-aware world of project finance does not deal well with new technologies.
As will be explored further in this review, these projects face issues as being new. Banks are risk averse and therefore are not comfortable lending to new technologies. Project sponsors have never done this before and face execution risk. Customer demand offtake of a product may be timid. All these problems are key traits of the first of a kind (FOAK) problem that presents a key barrier to commercialization of clean technology. This is a key barrier to commercialization: if the first version of a project never gets built, there can be no next of a kind, there can be no nth of a kind, and there can be no learning curve impact (arguably the most important force in support of commercialization).
A Summary of the Reports
Commonalities and underlying trends in the reports are the goal of this review, but I would be making a mistake if I did not discuss the specific points in each report that I found interesting and provide takeaways and key learnings from each report. Perhaps through the summaries you can start to inference the underlying trends. This next section will review each of the 11 reports and provide my key takeaways, statistics I found interesting, and graphs I found fascinating.
Advanced Nuclear
In the energy cultural meta, nuclear is hot as an arms race to find power for data centres is currently taking centre stage. The report sets a north star of tripling US nuclear capacity from 100 GW to 300 GW by 2050 and outlines the path to meet this target. The nuclear industry can reduce costs through repeat reactor designs and partnerships, making advanced nuclear technologies more viable for decarbonization. The current fleet of 94 operating reactors that produce 20% of US electricity is facing a license renewal apocalypse with 24 licenses expiring before 2035 and 84 by 2050.
Key Takeaways:
To achieve commercial liftoff, securing a committed orderbook of 5-10 deployments of a single reactor design is crucial. This will encourage suppliers to invest in manufacturing capacity and enable cost reductions through learning curve effects. Forming consortiums among utilities and large offtakers can mitigate the risks associated with being a first mover in advanced nuclear deployment.
The U.S. must significantly increase its uranium mining, milling, conversion, and enrichment capabilities to support an expanded nuclear capacity of 300 GW. This includes establishing access to 55,000-75,000 MT of U3O8 annually, 70,000-95,000 MT of UF6 conversion capacity, and 45-55 million SWU for enrichment.
An increase of approximately 375,000 skilled workers is essential to support the operation and construction of new reactors by 2050. This includes a strong emphasis on training and collaboration with unions to ensure a sufficient pipeline of skilled trades necessary for nuclear power plant construction and operations.
Carbon Management
Net zero commitments will rely on carbon management of some form. The report highlights the need for the capturing and permanent storage of approximately 400 to 1,800 million tonnes of CO2 annually (MMTpa) through point-source carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) and carbon dioxide removal (CDR). Relative to today, the US has 20 MTPA of carbon capture capacity.
Current technologies for carbon capture include point-source capture from industrial processes and power plants, direct air capture, and carbon dioxide removal methods such as Biomass carbon removal and storage and mineralization. The development and deployment of these technologies are supported by various policies and incentives, including the 45Q tax credit.
Key Takeaways:
Focus on creating carbon management technologies that can be easily scaled up. This includes investing in research and development to improve efficiency and reduce costs, making them more attractive to businesses and industries.
Establish collaborations with key stakeholders, including governments, private companies, and research institutions. These partnerships can provide the necessary resources, expertise, and market access needed to accelerate commercialization.
Advocate for policies and regulations that create a favorable market environment for carbon management solutions. This could involve tax incentives, subsidies, or carbon pricing mechanisms that encourage businesses to adopt and invest in carbon management technologies.
Clean Hydrogen
The DOE views clean hydrogen as the best solution for carbon-intensive hydrogen in certain industrial applications and broadly views deployment as being on track for national production capacity targets. Publicly announced capacity of hydrogen reflects 14 MMTpa by 2030 which excludes 3 MMTpa announced through the DOE hydrogen hubs program. To scale hydrogen production, the DOE estimates that the investment gap in the hydrogen value chain is between $30-$150B.
The current state of commercialization for clean hydrogen is in a phase of rapid growth, driven by significant investments from the Inflation Reduction Act and the establishment of Hydrogen Hubs, with projections of scaling domestic production from less than 1 million metric tons per year to approximately 10 million metric tons by 2030.
Key Takeaways:
Focus on advancing technologies for producing hydrogen economically, particularly through renewable energy sources, to enhance competitiveness in the energy market.
Invest in building and optimizing the infrastructure needed for hydrogen storage, distribution, and refueling to ensure accessibility and reliability for consumers and industries alike.
Collaborate with stakeholders across sectors, including government, industry, and research institutions, to drive innovation, share resources, and create a coordinated approach to scaling hydrogen solutions.
Geothermal Heating and Cooling
Living in Toronto, the power of heating and cooling networks is close to heart. The downtown core of Toronto harnesses the renewable cold temperature of Lake Ontario to cool a variety of buildings including hospitals, stadiums, educational campuses, and more. Further, I currently volunteer to bring neighbourhood scale district energy systems to communities outside of the downtown core through research and advocacy.
Geothermal heating and cooling through geothermal heat pumps (GHPs) represent powerful ways to reduce peak electricity demand, increase resilience, and lower energy bills. The potential for these technologies by 2050 are up to approximately 80 million homes across residential and commercial buildings in the USA. Effective deployment of GHPs could result in peak demand being shaved by hundreds of GW.
Key Takeaways:
Developing a skilled workforce in various trades related to geothermal heating and cooling is crucial. Training programs should focus on HVAC technicians, installers, drillers, and general contractors to ensure that there is a readily available and trained workforce to support the industry's growth.
It is essential to develop and standardize products and processes for GHP installations to create a consistent customer experience. This will lower costs, expand access, and facilitate a more commoditized approach to the installation of GHP systems across the country.
Addressing unclear regulations and implementing standardized regulations nationally will simplify planning and installation processes. This is vital for achieving network effects and replicability of business models, which will help drive adoption at scale.
Industrial Decarbonization
The catch-all overview report that covers an array of industrial sectors including chemicals, refining, iron and steel, food and beverage, cement, pulp and paper, aluminum, and glass. The report identifies that approximately 55% of the emissions abatement potential could be addressed by three available strategies including CCUS, clean onsite electricity and storage, and industrial electrification. Further, 10% of these decarbonization measures would lead to positive IRR such as energy efficiency retrofits, electrification, and use of alternative feedstocks.
Key Takeaways:
Significant growth in generation, transmission, and distribution infrastructure is essential to support electrification and grid decarbonization. As demand for low-temperature industrial heat increases, especially with heat pumps, an estimated 1,000 TWh of electricity will be required by 2030.
Each industry has unique emissions profiles and decarbonization opportunities. Tailoring strategies to each sector's needs and capabilities will facilitate more effective commercialization.
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) offers multiple tax credits that can significantly reduce the capital burden associated with deploying decarbonization technologies. Focusing on leveraging these incentives can help overcome the economic challenges and make investments in necessary technologies more attractive to private sector stakeholders.
Innovative Grid
The electricity grid that serves North America can be considered the World's largest machine by some, myself included. To that end, I find it daunting that transmission and distribution systems are utilized on average only at 40-50% of their total capacity.
The current state of innovative grid technologies in the U.S. electrical grid includes a range of advanced grid solutions that are commercially available but under-utilized, categorized into advanced transmission technologies, situational awareness and system automation solutions, grid-enhancing technologies, and foundational systems.
Key Takeaways:
Many advanced grid solutions, such as Dynamic Line Rating (DLR) and advanced conductors, offer significant cost savings compared to traditional upgrades. These solutions can be deployed quickly and affordably, allowing for immediate efficiency improvements and deferral of expensive infrastructure investments.
The grid may need to double in size by 2035 to accommodate increased demand and achieve decarbonization goals. Deploying advanced technologies can support an additional 20-100 GW of peak demand capacity and enhance system reliability.
Properly designed deployments of advanced grid solutions can enhance affordability and reliability in disadvantaged communities, reduce emissions, and improve overall system visibility.
Long Duration Energy Storage
The massive required buildout of renewables must be supported by technologies that can increase grid flexibility and reliability. LDES is a key option that can provide this. Broadly defined, LDES is generally defined as being able to discharge for 10-160 hours where 10-36 hours is inter-day and 36-160 is multi-day. To achieve the deployment goals, LDES will require cost reductions of 45-55% and an improvement in roundtrip efficiency of 7-15%.
The current state of LDES technologies and deployment is characterized by a nascent supply chain, with less than 1 GW deployed as of 2022, and a projected need for 225-460 GW by 2050 to support a net-zero economy.
Key Takeaways:
Establishing a comprehensive LDES supply chain is critical. This involves addressing raw material and manufacturing challenges immediately, followed by workforce development to support scaling efforts.
Attracting approximately $9–12 billion in investments by 2030 and $230–335 billion through 2050 is essential for LDES to compete effectively with Li-ion batteries and achieve necessary economies of scale.
Introduce market mechanisms such as tax credits, carbon pricing, and capacity markets to provide predictable compensation and reduce investor uncertainty, which will help to support LDES deployment and market growth.
Next Generation Geothermal Energy
The USA is the world leader in installed capacity of geothermal energy with approximately 4,000 MW of installed capacity producing approximately 0.4% of all electricity generation in the USA. Next generation geothermal, incorporating technologies from the oil and gas industry, has the ability to unlock the potential for geothermal energy. Through using ubiquitous hot rock, the areas where geothermal can economically be deployed are significantly expanded. Through commercialization, up to 90 GW of the 700-900 GW of firm capacity could come from next generation geothermal.
Key Takeaways:
Approximately $5 billion in upfront capital is critical for overcoming financing barriers and initiating early demonstration projects. This funding is essential to validate technologies and attract further investment.
Providing transparent operational data and engaging with communities can mitigate perceived risks and opposition. Early and continuous communication regarding seismicity and environmental impacts will foster trust and facilitate smoother project timelines.
Focus on research, development, and iterative improvements in drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies to drive down costs. Successful deployments across various geologic conditions will build investor confidence and accelerate market acceptance.
Sustainable Aviation Fuels
Constituting approximately 3% of US emissions, the aviation sector will rely on SAF as the primary tool for meaningful decarbonization. Through renewable and synthetic feedstocks through various chemical pathways, a 50-100% reduction in lifecycle emissions can be achieved. When blended with traditional jet fuel, SAF is a drop-in requirement. Currently announced SAF projects will account for over 3 billion gallons of annual SAF production by 2030 to be realized.
The current state of commercialization for SAF is limited, with only four operational production facilities in the U.S. that collectively produce 64 million gallons per year, representing less than 0.6% of total fossil jet fuel consumption.
Key Takeaways:
Pursuing co-processing operations at existing refineries can significantly reduce permitting and construction timelines. This approach allows for quicker ramp-up of SAF production at brownfield sites, utilizing existing technical know-how and midstream infrastructure to lower costs and emissions associated with fuel transport.
Normalizing long-term (10+ year) offtake agreements between airlines and SAF producers is crucial. Such contracts can provide the necessary demand certainty to secure financing and stimulate investment in SAF production facilities.
Additional policy support is needed to incentivize both supply and demand for SAF. Establishing harmonized international standards and reliable accounting measures for lifecycle emissions will enhance market stability and encourage participation from various stakeholders.
Offshore Wind
Offshore wind may be an existing technology across the world, but in the USA, it has significant commercialization to undergo. As of writing this, these commercialization efforts face a large uphill battle. Regardless of the hurdles imposed by the current administration, offshore wind currently consists of 250 MW of capacity with approximately 6 MW under construction and over 15 GW approved for construction.
The U.S. offshore wind market is at a critical juncture, with approximately 250 MW operational, 5 GW under construction, and over 10 GW approved for construction as of April 2024. Despite recent cost increases from around $85 to $140 per MWh, there is potential for significant growth, with forecasts projecting around 40 GW by 2035 and over 100 GW by 2050.
Key Takeaways:
Invest in upgrading port infrastructure and expanding the supply chain for offshore wind components to ensure that the necessary enabling infrastructure is in place for large-scale deployment.
Implement consistent offshore wind procurement schedules and encourage cross-state collaboration on supply chain and transmission planning. Shortening the offtake to FID time interval and de-risking projects through procurement reforms will help mitigate current deployment risks.
Utilize federal, state, and tribal financial support programs, including tax credits and grants, to enhance project viability. Target projects at risk and ensure access to incentives to stabilize costs and encourage investment in offshore wind development.
Virtual Power Plants
One of the areas that simply makes the most sense to me, my first long form article was on virtual power plants. VPPs are ways to integrate distributed energy resources (DERs) in a way that adds flexibility to the grid and increase resilience. The ability to call on load to shave peak demand or inject power into the grid could save utilities and ratepayers up to 40-60% the cost of peaker facilities.
The current state of technology for VPPs involves the aggregation of DERs such as solar panels, batteries, electric vehicles, and smart appliances, which can provide grid services similar to traditional power plants. VPPs leverage commercially available technologies and software platforms to optimize the operation and management of these resources, enabling real-time balancing of electricity supply and demand.
Key Takeaways:
Collaborate among governments, utilities, and organizations to promote Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) that prioritize savings, grid reliability, and environmental improvements. Implement low-cost financing and rebates for VPP-enabled devices to enhance consumer investment in DERs.
Develop streamlined processes for VPP participant enrollment, including consumer education initiatives and automatic opt-out enrollment for DERs at the point of purchase. This can significantly increase participation rates in VPPs.
Establish guidelines and standards for VPP operations to enhance consistency and efficiency. Focus on improving forecasting tools, service agreement contracts, and measurement protocols to facilitate quicker deployment and integration of VPPs into retail and wholesale markets.
Commercialization Playbook
Through reviewing the executive summary of the reports above, the implications for the energy system and economy and scale of deployment needed should raise some considerations for the scale of change required. This next section will aim to take the disparate but interconnected reports through an analysis of the commonalities and how that will influence the need to commercialize emerging technologies in the US. Through reading all of the 11 reports, I started to connect dots between the reports, identifying shared trends that will be needed to commercialize. This section will explore these identified commonalities in no particular order.
Demonstration Projects
Demonstration projects have a massive role to play in the transition towards nascent technologies. These projects are a graduation from the prototype stage, a full scale commercial unit that involves more risk and capital than a prototype but can greatly reduce perceived risk from investors. The combination of these features means that financing can be extremely difficult and leaves projects at risk of entering the valley of death. The IEA also forecasts that approximately US$90B of public funding needs to be raised by 2026 to complete a portfolio of demonstration projects for technologies that could be commercially ready by 2030.
Demonstration projects will expedite deployment through a variety of different methods. What seemed to be stressed the most in the DOE reports was the shared base of knowledge that could be created through demonstration projects. Through sharing the learnings, results, and performance data from the initial deployment of various technologies, the next iteration of deployments can greatly benefit.
Further important details regarding the importance of demonstration projects is what comes after the demonstration project. With lessons learned, mistakes recognized, and efficiencies gained, the next phase of projects are likely to have a smoother deployment. This smoother deployment would come with a lower cost of deployment as learning curves are realized.
Consortium Approach and Order Books
As discussed above, the demonstration project will involve more risk, capital, and challenges than future iterations due to key learnings. As a result, it seems likely that smart individuals may opt to wait for the next of a kind (NOAK) projects compared to the FOAK project. This creates a huge issue as there is largely a first mover disadvantage. The solution to this issue is the relation between the consortium approach and building an order book.
The consortium approach to procurement of emerging clean technologies means that a group of buyers teams up to place an order for a specific technology. This means that if there are five members of the consortium, the consortium places an order for 5 projects and then shares in the total costs and production of the five projects procured. No single member of the consortium approach bears the burden of the demonstration project. The most well known approach would have to be Frontier, an advanced market commitment to purchase more than US$1B in permanent carbon removal from 2022-2030.
Building an order book and utilizing the consortium approach have huge benefits. At large, the members of the consortium all benefit from the mutual sharing of risk and reward, costs and revenues. Further, consortiums can all partner with the same engineering, procurement, and construction firm for the repeated deployment that will then be more likely to create cost savings through repeated builds and the learning curve effect.
A consortium approach to the procurement of FOAK projects has numerous advantages to all parties involved in the transaction. Through risk sharing, a shared pool of diverse expertise, aggregated demand, credibility from the pool of buyers, enhanced policy advocacy, and enhanced commercialization, the importance of the consortium approach and closely related size of order book is a critical lever that the demand side has at their disposal to improve the rate at which technologies are commercialized.
Workforce Development
One of the largest underlying trends was that of the workforce needed for the future deployment of these technologies. With the transformation of our energy system at play, it is no surprise that a huge amount of jobs are created to fulfill the need. In fact, the IEA puts global energy employment at 67 million people. Not only do we need to revamp global energy systems, but we need to invest in the labour supply chain to fill the roles needed to make the energy transition happen and deploy these technologies.
Leveraging skills from the existing fossil fuels industry will be critically important to ensure adequate skills are available and to ensure those that would be left behind in an energy transition are not forgotten about. After all, the same skillset that unlocked fracking as an extraction method is now being used in advanced geothermal to unlock vast reserves of geothermal energy. The development of the labour needed to actually manufacture and install these variety of technologies may have actually been the biggest underlying trend through the 11 reports. The need to understand the existing construction labour gaps, invest in community colleges and trade schools is massive.
Offtake
An offtake contract is one of the most, if not the most, important aspect of a project. Offtake is a term used to describe someone who buys the product that the project creates. An example of an offtake contract would be a data centre who commits to buying the electricity from a solar pv project for 20 years at a fixed price. This matters because an offtake contract creates a relatively fixed schedule of revenue if a buyer is expected to consume all of the product from a project, which gives financiers confidence in a project to repay debt that might have been issued to fund the project.
Closely related to the consortium approach, expressing demand for the product from these projects is critical to provide long term demand certainty for the supply created. Offtake agreements or mechanisms provide the demand side signal to enable these projects get built. If a SAF project gets produced but airlines are not willing to purchase the fuel created, well, now you have a shutdown SAF project and no carbon reductions. Offtake contracts are critical to the finances of a project to provide investors confidence.
In summary, offtake contracts are a cornerstone of the development and scaling of clean energy technologies through providing financial security, risk mitigation, and market signals necessary to attract investment, build infrastructure, and achieve commercial liftoff. Through connecting supply and demand, clean technology projects can move from concept to reality.
Maturing the Supply Chain
An overlap with workforce development, supply chain buildout refers to the maturing of the countless components, intermediate works, and required products for constructing this new range of clean technologies. Given that many of these technologies are new and evolving quickly, the supply chains for constructing these projects is immature and building out. One example I always come back to is the discussion around offshore wind and the ships required to do so and how there is a severe lack of these ships coupled with the Jones Act in the USA and how this creates a pinch point.
To meet the demands that are imposed by deployment requirements, the entire clean energy supply chain must be scaled rapidly, often in orders of magnitude. Further, maturing the supply chain extends vertically to the availability of raw materials. Creating investments in the supply chain will enable robust and resilient supply chains that are crucial for the deployment of clean energy.
Financing
The solutions that will be deployed for the clean energy transition are generally large projects. The key mechanism underpinning the structure of a project finance transaction is critical. Shown quantitatively through research, Wood Mackenzie estimates that for every two percent increase in interest rates, the levelized cost of electricity for renewables increases by 20%. Deploying and maturing innovative financing structures are required to provide the market signals to project developers that the projects are financeable.
Achieving "liftoff", where these markets become largely self-sustaining and attract diverse private capital, necessitates substantial cumulative investment, often ranging from hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars across various sectors like hydrogen, carbon management, and industrial decarbonization. This capital is essential for de-risking FOAK projects through demonstrations, enabling the cost reductions and learning curves required for competitiveness with incumbent technologies.
In summary, securing financing for clean energy projects requires addressing various challenges, including credit risks, regulatory uncertainty, and cost overruns. Strategies for attracting investment involve mitigating risks through private contracts and public support, leveraging government programs, and fostering collaboration among stakeholders. Innovative financial mechanisms, such as contingent equity and debt, along with long-term power purchase agreements, can further enhance project bankability and attract a wider range of investors.
Conclusion
To accelerate the commercialization of clean technologies critical for a net-zero future, governments, corporates, and investors must coordinate to bridge the persistent gaps in risk tolerance, patient capital, and infrastructure readiness. Technology specific strategies such as advance market commitments for hydrogen, bankable offtake agreements for long-duration energy storage, and performance-based incentives for geothermal, should be deployed alongside broad enablers like streamlined permitting, integrated infrastructure planning, and scale focused public-private partnerships. Clear price signals, predictable regulatory frameworks, and dedicated commercialization entities can help de-risk investment and create credible pathways to market.
Ultimately, achieving scale will require treating commercialization as a first-order policy and investment priority, not a secondary outcome of innovation. Governments must move beyond funding R&D alone to actively shaping markets, de-risking deployment, and enabling offtake. Strategic finance vehicles, such as contract-for-difference mechanisms or blended finance funds, should be tailored to technology maturity and market barriers. Without deliberate commercialization strategies aligned to decarbonization timelines, the technologies needed to hit 2030 and 2050 climate targets will remain stuck in pilot stages, too promising to abandon, but too risky to scale. The window to act is closing, and effective commercialization must be treated as an essential element of climate policy and industrial strategy.
Appendix
First of a Kind
FOAK projects in climate tech refer to the initial commercial deployments of innovative low-carbon technologies that have been proven at pilot scale but have not yet been demonstrated at full scale in real-world conditions. These projects often face high capital costs, limited operational data, and significant performance uncertainty, making them too risky for traditional investors or lenders. FOAK status applies to technologies such as advanced nuclear, green hydrogen, long-duration energy storage, and direct air capture. Successfully deploying FOAK projects is critical to moving climate innovations from lab to market, but doing so requires targeted support mechanisms to mitigate risk, build investor confidence, and establish cost and performance benchmarks that future projects can build upon.
Learning Curves
Separate but impossible to sever are the concepts of FOAK and learning curves. Learning curves are conditional on FOAK, learning curves cannot exist because they rely on learning through iteration, repeated deployments to drive learnings and optimizations across costs and production efficiencies. Put simply, learn by doing. Also known as experience curve effects or Wright's Law, learning curves help us understand how much the cost of a certain technology decreases for each doubling of production. The underlying principle is that as we do things over and over, we get better and better at doing said thing. It is an easy concept to understand intuitively, but the power of this law is massive. Solar photovoltaic (Solar PV) is a great example of learning curves showing how far down the cost of solar pv has come in US 2023$/watt shown in contrast to deployment of solar pv capacity.