Snow covered street in Saporro, Japan

Sapporo is the snowiest major city in the world, and clearing it is expensive. Hokkaido’s cities spend on the order of ¥100 billion a year on snow management, using diesel trucks and manual labor, and across 12 cities in the region those costs have risen 1.8 times in a decade. None of that appears in Japan’s national decarbonization strategy, yet it is the problem Sapporo City wants solved, and it is the opening our Japan team has used to bring climate tech into a prefecture now designated a GX financial zone.

That is how subnational work tends to start. The national target sets a direction, and the region supplies the problem worth solving, the site to test on and the budget already being spent. Our teams in Japan, South Korea, China and California all described a version of it in this webinar.

1. One national target becomes many local economic models

All 17 of Korea’s major regions now have carbon neutrality and green growth plans, under a national target of roughly 40% emissions reduction by 2030. The interesting part is what the regions do with that mandate. Gyeonggi is building around industrial solar, corporate PPAs and climate tech startups. Seoul focuses on retrofits, efficiency and electrification. Jeollanam-do works on offshore wind and ocean energy. As Minsoo Chung, our Korea Program Lead, put it:

“Korea’s provinces and cities are becoming more than administrators of climate policy. They are becoming market makers, customers, ecosystem builders and testing grounds for the next generation of climate technology.”

2. The zone is the instrument

China’s local governments have run most of their early clean energy policy through industrial parks and economic zones, testing subsidies and rules inside a small area before applying them more widely. Goldwind, now the country’s largest wind turbine maker, was founded in Urumqi in 1998 and built its early business from the city’s economic and technological development zone, where Shane says land, rent and tax terms were part of what let it scale. After listing in Shenzhen in 2007, it moved to a development zone in Beijing, and grew again from there. Two decades of Chinese manufacturing strength were assembled one zone at a time.

3. Start with a problem citizens already feel

Hokkaido has been designated a GX financial zone, and our Japan team, led by Huong Ly-Le, has been working with Sapporo City to find where global climate tech meets local demand. The answer was snow (yep, snow!). Sapporo gets up to five meters of it a year, and snow management costs the region on the order of ¥100 billion annually. Removal is diesel-and labor-intensive, and across 12 Hokkaido cities have risen 1.8 times in a decade. Treating snow as a resource for data center cooling and thermal storage turns a municipal expense into an innovation agenda.

4. Where public funding stops, philanthropy has to work harder

California’s clean tech pipeline was built on public funding. CalSEED has awarded grants of up to $700,000 to 158 startups, and CalTestBed vouchers have given 67 startups access to third-party testing across nine University of California campuses and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. That pipeline produced companies like Gridware, founded by a former lineman with no route into the venture community, which now has more than 1,000 wildfire detection units deployed across PG&E territory since 2020. Joy Larson, our California Program Director, was blunt about what comes next:

“Government funding has just gone off a cliff. That’s an opportunity for non-governmental money to support subnational work towards energy transition.”

5. Reinventing the wheel, one region after another

Subnational regions solving these problems rarely talk to each other. Our China team hosted delegations from Pakistan and Thailand during Shanghai Climate Week and took an EU Commission group through a Shanghai development zone, and in each case the questions were about things China worked out years ago inside its industrial parks. Korean startups from Gyeonggi went the other way, to Boston Climate Week, looking for customers and capital.

What we take from this

The opportunity is to connect these places more deliberately, so that a technology Hokkaido needs to tackle its snow challenge, for example, can be found in Korea or the United States rather than developed from scratch. There is still surprisingly little cross-pollination between these clean energy innovation ecosystems, and working at the subnational level also creates a way to keep moving when national ambition stalls.

If you’re a funder, corporate or regional agency and want to find out more, talk to us.

Watch the full webinar recording.

California is a battery research juggernaut. Why can’t it manufacture them too?

California is a leader in battery innovation, research, and talent development. To build a resilient clean energy transition and capture the full economic benefits of this growing industry, the state also needs a diverse, domestic battery supply chain that spans the entire value chain—including manufacturing. Yet despite its leadership in innovation, California continues to lose large-scale manufacturing investment to other regions and states.

A new employer assessment brief from New Energy Nexus California reveals why the State struggles to attract battery manufacturers compared to other states and what the state can do to compete. The findings are clear: structural barriers hold back companies willing to invest and scale production locally.

Why California falls behind

Manufacturing siting decisions depend on speed, certainty, and cost. California scores high on talent and innovation but falls short on:

• Power infrastructure – Multi-year utility delays for bringing power to industrial sites
• Permitting – Complex, uncertain, and fragmented approval processes
• Incentives – Lacks coordinated attraction packages that other regions, such as those located along the Battery Belt, offer.
• Supply chain – Limited U.S. capacity to produce and process critical minerals at scale.

When regions compete for manufacturers, speed makes all the difference. Companies compare regions primarily on how quickly they can start operating. Speed and certainty outweigh small cost differences.

Introducing BAHRMI

The Bay Area High Road Manufacturing Initiative (BAHRMI) is leading the effort to transform how manufacturing investments and workforce resources are deployed across the region. BAHRMI unites industry, labor, and community partners to build an inclusive, competitive, and sustainable advanced energy manufacturing economy for the Bay Area.

BAHRMI is actively developing pilot projects in Contra Costa County to cultivate high-road battery manufacturing, engaging employers, labor unions, workforce development partners, government, and community stakeholders to design a high-road battery innovation hub  that creates quality jobs and builds community wealth.

The opportunity: What employers need

The assessment identifies eight recommendations that could reduce uncertainty, lower costs, and speed timelines for manufacturers. These align directly with BAHRMI’s high-road approach.

• Pre-permitted sites – Manufacturing-ready campuses with pre-negotiated permits and single-point-of-contact approvals
• Shared infrastructure – Facilities with shared waste, water, hazardous materials processing, and pilot-scale manufacturing capacity
• Targeted incentives – Upfront incentives, lower electricity rates, workforce development stimulus, and recycling mandates
• Government procurement – Long-term contracts that create reliable markets for domestically manufactured products
• Workforce development – Coordinated pathways through community colleges, apprenticeships, and on-the-job learning
• Strategic positioning – Focus on early-stage prototyping and commercialization, building on Bay Area R&D strengths
• Community and environmental stewardship – Balance community engagement, environmental protection, and industrial innovation.

The bottom line

California has the talent, innovation, and market demand. What it lacks is the coordinated strategy to turn these assets into manufacturing growth. By investing in pre-permitted sites, shared infrastructure, targeted incentives, and a skilled workforce guided by high-road principles, the Bay Area can become a hub for advanced battery manufacturing that creates good jobs, strengthens regional competitiveness, and supports long-term economic and energy affordability goals.

Download the full employer assessment brief for detailed findings and recommendations.

The employer assessment brief was prepared by Areana Flores of New Energy Nexus. Financial support for convening participants and preparing this report was made possible by the Bay Area High Road Manufacturing Initiative, through a grant from California Jobs First.

Get involved

For updates related to this report, follow BAHRMI’s LinkedIn here.
For questions, reach out to Areana Flores at areana.flores@newenergynexus.com 

Written by Jennifer Wang, Director of Financial Innovation at New Energy Nexus

Anyone who lives in or has visited Jakarta will have seen the motorcycles: slipping between cars, gathering at intersections, carrying passengers, food orders, parcels, tools, and stock for small businesses. They are often treated as part of the traffic problem, but in Indonesia they are the backbone of the transportation system. With around 139 million two-wheel vehicles on the road, Indonesia’s motorcycle market is the third largest in the world, but less than 1% of those are electric.

This is why the energy crisis is hitting Indonesians hard.

State-owned energy company Pertamina raised the price of its flagship Pertamax gasoline by more than 30 percent in June, from Rp12,300 to Rp16,250 a litre. This is causing consumers to take a hit to their personal income, or else switch to the lower grade government-subsidized Pertalite fuel, which some fear could cause long-term damage to their vehicles. Long queues have already been observed at many gas stations across the country, and there is no telling how long the government will be able to continue to shoulder the growing cost of subsidizing Pertalite, despite assurances from the energy minister.

The solution seems obvious: reduce the nation’s dependence on fossil fuels.

In fact, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto has framed reducing dependence on imported fossil fuels as a strategic national priority and the country already has ambitious targets for EVs. But accelerating EV adoption, especially two-wheelers, will require a multipronged approach that includes policy and financial solutions.

For drivers, couriers, and low-to-middle income households, multiple barriers are holding back the switch to electric motorcycles. Government incentives have been inconsistent, with the 2023 purchase subsidy introduced and then withdrawn less than two years later. And consumers remain hesitant, wary of a technology that hasn’t yet earned their trust or proven its resale value.

Beyond that, the EV landscape is fragmented, dominated by over 65 young local brands rather than the household names like Honda and Yamaha that anchor the internal combustion engine (ICE) market. Upfront costs are higher than traditional ICE vehicles, with little affordable financing to bridge the gap, and the charging, swapping, and repair infrastructure that ICE riders take for granted is nascent and uneven for EVs — growing, but nowhere near the density or reliability riders need.

Adoption is lagging

Electric motorcycles are already cheaper to operate: according to think tank RMI, the total cost of ownership of an electric motorcycle is at least 34% lower than an equivalent ICE vehicle, freeing up income for food, school, utilities, and other household needs.

Yet adoption remains far below its potential, with electric motorcycles accounting for fewer than 230,000 units, or less than 1% of the total fleet. Annual electric motorcycle sales reached only around 55,000 units in 2025, less than 1% of new motorcycle sales.

The gap between ambition and reality is also striking. The previous administration set a target of 13 million electric motorcycles on Indonesian roads by 2030, but even optimistic industry projections put annual electric motorcycle sales at around 1.9 million by 2030.

Electric motorcycles, despite representing arguably the strongest energy security opportunity, have received comparatively less policy attention. Responsibility for the EV transition is split across the energy, industry, finance, and transport ministries, and coordination among them has remained weak, with no single institution effectively driving it. Indeed, much of Indonesia’s recent EV momentum has centered upstream, on nickel mining and processing – of which Indonesia is the producer for the world – and battery materials.

Financial barriers to adoption

Policy, however, only gets us so far. The biggest barrier for consumers is the high upfront cost. Electric motorcycles remain approximately Rp5-6 million (US$280 to US$336) more expensive than comparable conventional motorcycles and financing is one of the most significant obstacles to wider adoption.

While around 80-90% of conventional motorcycle purchases in Indonesia are financed according to our own stakeholder interviews, only a small fraction of electric motorcycle buyers currently access the formal lending market. Where loans are available, the terms are often less favorable than those offered for conventional motorcycles.

Furthermore, as households come under financial pressure, consumers often delay major purchases, including vehicles. This creates an important challenge for the EV transition. Even if electric vehicles offer lower operating costs over the long term, their upfront cost can remain out of reach for many households, particularly when there is not a robust secondary market that could give consumers comfort that they can quickly sell their vehicle for cash if financial pressures mount. This reality highlights why affordability matters just as much as technology.

These conditions reflect legitimate concerns among lenders, too. Electric motorcycles are still a relatively new asset class, with limited data on battery performance, resale value, and long-term reliability.

The same concern that consumers have about being able to liquidate their vehicles in a pinch also affects lenders and the residual value they would receive for the vehicle if it had to be repossessed. The fragmented EV landscape and less developed after-sales market also increase the risk that a borrower would be unable to make payments on the loan if a faulty vehicle prevents the driver from utilizing it for their livelihood. The result is that financing often becomes inaccessible for the very consumers who stand to benefit most from lower operating costs, particularly ride-hailing drivers, delivery workers, and low-to-middle income households.

The solutions that need scaling

Several Indonesian companies are experimenting with financing models designed specifically for the realities of the country’s motorcycle market.

One example is Indonesian EV startup’s Cocoride platform, which combines battery-swapping infrastructure with rent-to-own financing and provides drivers with access to electric motorcycles without many of the barriers associated with conventional vehicle loans. Through daily repayment structures, remote monitoring technology, and rapid vehicle redeployment, the model is designed around the realities of Indonesia’s informal and platform-based workforce. Along with Cocoride, there are a handful of other innovative financing structures being deployed (Electrum, Aizen, and Blitz Electric Mobility are just a few) that help these livelihood drivers access the significant benefits of driving and owning an electric motorcycle.

What these innovations have in common is an understanding that the challenge is not simply selling electric motorcycles. It is designing financial products and support systems that match how Indonesians actually earn, spend, and use transportation assets.

This is also where new policy and financing solutions can play an important role. Across emerging markets, governments, financiers, and development institutions are increasingly exploring tools such as guarantee facilities, blended finance structures, and risk-sharing mechanisms that can reduce lender exposure and unlock private capital for electric mobility. Policy interventions are being designed to support this mobilization, as well as to align with countries’ domestic manufacturing and industrial policy goals.

The opportunity

The clean energy transition that protects Indonesia from the next geopolitical oil shock also builds a domestic industry, creates jobs in manufacturing and battery production, and lowers the cost of mobility for the millions of Indonesians whose livelihoods depend on two wheels.

To accelerate adoption, Indonesia will need coordinated solutions that reduce the initial financial burden on consumers and help get more electric motorcycles on the road to create a secondary market. New Energy Nexus and UC Davis’ Global South Center for Clean Transportation are exploring possible policy and financing solutions, such as fiscal and non-fiscal policy, blended finance schemes, consumer and lender education, and mobility-as-a-service schemes.

This moment of crisis creates an opening to supercharge a mass transition to EVs.

Not only will a transition to electric two-wheelers support Indonesia’s emissions reduction targets, it will also offer  financial stability for the millions of Indonesians who rely on their motorcycles to support their livelihoods.

Battery demand is projected to grow by 33% by 2030, putting increasing pressure on global supply chains to keep pace. But building more batteries takes more than critical minerals and manufacturing capacity. It also depends on entrepreneurs developing the technologies that strengthen every stage of the value chain: from refining and cell manufacturing to charging, storage, and recycling.

That innovation was on display at the second Supercharge Australia Incubator Pitch Day, where nine startups showcased their solutions to investors, policymakers, and industry leaders driving the country’s battery future. The virtual event drew more than 230 registrations, marking the culmination of eleven weeks of tailored support from EnergyLab and New Energy Nexus.

The founders presented innovations spanning cleaner lithium refining, safer battery components, Australian-made cells and packs, thermal energy recovery, universal and bidirectional charging infrastructure, consumer energy participation, and second-life battery diagnostics. Meet the startups below:

Here are the participating startups and their lithium battery value chain focus

• Ixium Technologies: Cleaner, cheaper, modular lithium carbonate refining
• IonMatrix Energy: Thermally stable separator membranes for safer cells
• Cosmos Infinity: Next-generation solid-state lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cells engineered for hot climates, made in Australia
• RENOZ Energy: Australian-made battery systems with fleet-scale intelligence
• HASAKI Research and Technology Centre: Thermoelectric waste heat recovery extending electric vehicle (EV) range
• Mercier Designs: The eCube universal exchangeable battery ecosystem
• DELECTRO: DELOCA and the Hearth – a low-carbon participatory lifestyle platform encouraging greater use of midday solar
• V3G: Retrofittable bidirectional vehicle-to-grid (V2G) charging at half the cost
• DYNOVY: Fast health grading of used EV batteries for reuse and recycling

The Incubator’s conclusion extends Supercharge Australia’s track record: five programs delivered, 50 companies supported, and over $150 million raised or granted by program alumni since participation. The Incubator provides mentorship, expert advice, pilot opportunities, early customer connections, investor engagement, and international exposure, helping these teams build the foundations of Australia’s battery future.

All of this is possible through our funders: Stephen Pfeiffer, Freddy Sharpe, and the Dusseldorp Forum [CONFIRM each funder is OK to be publicly acknowledged before publishing], and all of the speakers who lent their expertise throughout the program.

Registrations are now open for the Supercharge Australia Innovation Challenge #4: an 8-week sprint across the lithium battery value chain with a special focus on the Southeast Asian opportunity, including an overseas trip and introductions. Southeast Asia is on track to be home to 800 million people by 2050, all seeking the energy access and living standards that batteries and clean electrons can deliver. Applications close 6 September.

Meeting growing demand

Lithium is back. After a prolonged downturn, spodumene prices rose sharply at the start of 2026, with Fastmarkets’ benchmark assessment climbing from around US$1,560-1,590 per tonne at the start of January to US$2,190-2,260 per tonne within a fortnight, and Australian producers now weighing restarts of mothballed operations.

The demand story has also broadened well beyond EVs: Fastmarkets’ research team has raised its global energy storage system shipment forecast for 2026 by more than 60%, to 750 GWh (gigawatt hours), underpinned by artificial intelligence data center construction and the global energy transition.

Each startup in the Incubator cohort is developing a critical piece of the emerging ecosystem, and the kinds of investment opportunities the sector is seeking. While early traction across the cohort was strong—from validated prototypes and filed patents to Clean Energy Council (CEC) certification and deployed megawatt hours—the startups all face the same uphill challenge: securing the capital, facilities, and support to move from validated concepts to scalable commercial impact. The Incubator addresses this gap by de-risking early innovation, reducing barriers to commercialisation, and helping Australia retain its battery intellectual property onshore.

Backing Australia’s battery future

Our goal to shore up Australia’s lithium battery value chain does not stop here. Through Supercharge Australia, New Energy Nexus and EnergyLab are calling for greater early-stage support: non-dilutive seed funding, better access to testing and certification facilities, stronger pilot opportunities, and closer connections between founders, investors, industry, and government.

One of our initiatives reflecting these is AusTestBed, launched by New Energy Nexus and EnergyLab with seed funding from Boundless. Inspired by California’s successful CalTestBed model, the pilot gives Supercharge Australia alumni access to independent testing at Australian research facilities, helping startups generate the validation needed to attract customers and investment. Learn more about the program here.

Australia has the ingredients to lead the global battery economy. By continuing to back founders with the right infrastructure, partnerships, and pathways to market, the country can ensure more battery technologies are built, tested, and scaled at home—strengthening both its clean energy transition and its long-term industrial competitiveness.

To join Supercharge Australia as a startup, supporter, mentor, or industry partner, get in touch.

Stefan Gsänger, Secretary General of the World Wind Energy Association (WWEA), speaks at the 2026 Offshore Wind Conference.

At the 2026 Offshore Wind Conference held in Shanghai Hongqiao, New Energy Nexus (NEX) China had an open and insightful conversation with Stefan Gsänger, Secretary General of the World Wind Energy Association (WWEA).

As one of the most experienced global advocates in the wind energy sector, Stefan has worked in the energy transition field for more than 25 years. He has been actively engaged across Europe, Asia, Central Asia, and Africa, promoting international collaboration, community energy development, and the vision of 100% renewable energy. During the nearly two-hour discussion, we went beyond wind power technologies and explored the evolving global energy landscape, China’s changing role, and future directions for international cooperation.

Competing on systems, not technologies

In Stefan’s view, the global energy transition has entered a new phase. In the past, the focus was on who possessed more advanced technologies; today, a more important question is who can build comprehensive energy system capabilities.

This shift is particularly evident in China. Over the past decade, China has grown from a follower in clean energy technologies into one of the world’s most important players. Across wind power, solar PV, energy storage, and electric vehicles, China has not only built a complete supply chain but has also rapidly accumulated experience in market deployment.

However, Stefan believes China’s future role should not stop at being a technology supplier. Chinese companies need to gradually shift from an export-oriented mindset to a global partner mindset. This means exporting not only equipment, but also system integration capabilities, business models, project experience, and the practical wisdom accumulated throughout the energy transition.

China, a living laboratory

One idea resonated strongly throughout the discussion: China is not only a global manufacturing hub for clean energy technologies, but also a vast living laboratory.

A large market, abundant data, and rapid industrial iteration are constantly validating new energy solutions.

From electric vehicles and zero-carbon industrial parks to renewable energy integration and new power systems, many innovations are being deployed first in China.

These experiences are gradually becoming an important form of China’s soft power in the global energy transition. For emerging economies that are still building out their energy infrastructure, they offer valuable lessons.

Stefan pointed out that, unlike Europe, where energy systems are primarily being replaced, many countries in Asia and Africa have the opportunity to build new energy systems from the ground up. Under such circumstances, China’s experience becomes even more transferable.

More than a technical issue

Stefan repeatedly emphasized that the energy transition is fundamentally a social transformation.

Across Europe, more community energy projects are emerging. In some cases, wind farms have been converted from traditional development models into cooperatives, allowing local residents to participate in investment, decision-making, and benefit sharing.

This not only improves public acceptance but also ensures that ordinary people benefit directly from the transition. Similar explorations are now taking place in China. More and more rural renewable energy projects are enabling local residents and village collectives to become participants and beneficiaries rather than bystanders.

During the conversation, we also shared NEX China’s casebook Small Money, Big Change, which features innovative renewable energy financing models in rural China. One example from Dalad Banner in Inner Mongolia particularly caught Stefan’s attention: local villagers and herders invested in a distributed wind power project and gradually transformed from traditional energy consumers into beneficiaries of renewable energy revenues. Stefan expressed a strong interest in these cases and hoped to read the full casebook.

In his view, these community-rooted practices that balance economic development with the energy transition carry value not only for China but also for many other countries.

Perhaps more than grand narratives, these real stories from villages, communities, and the lives of ordinary people can serve as a window through which the world better understands China’s energy transition.

Where the opportunities are

Despite a complex international environment, Stefan remains optimistic. He believes that the most promising opportunities in the future may not emerge in mature markets, but rather through new forms of collaboration among emerging markets.

Central Asia is a prime example.

Countries such as Kazakhstan possess abundant wind resources and vast land areas, yet they still require support in financing mechanisms, industrial ecosystems, and international resource mobilization.

Stefan expressed a strong interest in exploring future collaboration pathways between WWEA and NEX China.

This also points to a ‘golden triangle’ model worth exploring over the long term: a new cooperation network that brings together European industry organizations and ecosystem enablers, China’s mature technologies and solutions, and the practical needs of emerging markets.

In this model, Europe contributes international networks and industry expertise, China provides market-proven technologies and system solutions, and emerging markets become new spaces for innovation and green industrial development. China is no longer merely an equipment exporter, nor is Europe solely a rule-maker; together, they can become enablers of the energy transition in emerging economies.

Across Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and the broader Global South, this cross-regional collaboration has the potential to create jobs, cultivate local green industries, and promote a more inclusive and sustainable development model. In many ways, this represents the next stage of global energy cooperation: a shift from one-way export to co-creation.

Wind Farm in Guangling County, Shanxi.

‘China stories’ in the next decade

Toward the end of the discussion, we touched upon a shared concern: how can the world better understand China?

Stefan acknowledged that misconceptions about China’s renewable energy sector still exist in some developed economies. At the same time, more entrepreneurs, businesses, and local institutions from emerging and developing countries are actively seeking opportunities to work with China.

Their focus is not geopolitics, but a more practical question: how to achieve a faster, more efficient, and more affordable energy transition.

Perhaps China’s most important export in the next decade will no longer be equipment and products, but real stories—stories about innovation, collaboration, and enabling more people to participate in the energy transition.

Organizations such as NEX and WWEA, as ecosystem builders, are becoming important bridges connecting countries, industries, and communities.

In the next decade, a more important question than who possesses the most advanced technology may be: who can create the future together with more partners? Because the energy transition is never a one-country performance. It is a long-term endeavor that requires global collaboration.

Learn more about NEX China here.

As global oil and gas shocks continue to raise electricity prices and put pressure on households and businesses, Thailand’s residents are turning to solar. The government is greasing the wheels on this transition, introducing new incentives for rooftop solar while encouraging high-consumption users to generate their own power.

As demand for solar grows, so does the need for the people who can design, install, and maintain these systems. Stepping up to the plate are enterprising Thais, who are increasingly seeking the skills needed to turn the clean energy transition into new career and business opportunities.

A recent rapid survey conducted by New Energy Nexus (NEX) Thailand in Phuket found demand for solar installation training running at least three times higher than comparable surveys conducted before the energy crisis. The responses came from hotel technicians, electricians, farmers, construction workers, unemployed job seekers, and experienced professionals looking for a second career.

A workforce responding to the energy reality

The energy crisis alone did not drive this momentum. Thailand has been building up to this for a while now.

Its latest electricity tariff reforms, combined with years of exposure to energy price shocks, have strengthened the economic case for solar. Businesses across Phuket’s tourism-driven economy, from hotels and resorts to restaurants and retailers, continue to face high operating costs tied to electricity consumption.

And so, Thais are seizing the opportunity.

Key data points from the survey include:

1. “Becoming a Solar Cell Entrepreneur” was the most popular course offering. Solar installation, battery assembly, and solar-powered agricultural systems also attracted strong interest

2. Nearly one in three respondents (32%) is currently unemployed. A majority saw solar entrepreneurship or installation as their route back into work. Another 9% were electricians and technicians with transferable skills, while hotel and hospitality workers formed a notable cohort, reflecting Phuket’s exposure to rising energy costs.

3. The average respondent age is 44, with a substantial share in their 50s and early 60s. There are experienced workers who saw their electricity bills spike in 2022 and 2023, and are now pursuing solar training as a deliberate next step. Several even wrote in the open-response section about using solar skills to build a second career after retirement, and some expressed curiosity about technologies such as batteries and solar EV chargers.

“The demand for solar training in Phuket tells us the energy price shock has already changed how people here think about their futures,” said Natcha Tulyasuwan, NEX Thailand country manager. “Hotel technicians, electricians, people between jobs—they want to be qualified solar installers and solar entrepreneurs.”

This bigger market for solar training is, as it turns out, exactly what the country needs right now.

While Thailand has ambitious plans to expand solar generation from just over 3 GW in 2024 to more than 33 GW by 2037, the country faces a critical bottleneck: not enough certified installers, solar SMEs, and maintenance professionals to meet growing demand.

Without sufficient training and accreditation pathways, consumers may struggle to find qualified installers, while poorly installed systems could undermine confidence in solar at a time when adoption is gaining momentum.

“The government is telling high-consumption users—hotels, businesses, large households—to go solar,” Tulyasuwan said. “A business in Phuket that acts on that advice today will struggle to find a certified installer who can guarantee quality work and a maintenance agreement.”

For many workers, the motivation already exists. What remains missing are accessible pathways to certification, entrepreneurship support, and practical training opportunities outside major urban centers.

Where to take this solar skills demand

This is where NEX Thailand comes in. In 2025, NEX Thailand’s SolarSTEP program secured national approval for its Solar Entrepreneurship Curriculum from the Department of Skill Development under the Ministry of Labour, creating a pathway toward nationally recognized solar workforce training.

The next challenge is scale. Expanding accredited training programs across provinces, supporting local training providers, and building a strong pipeline of installers and maintenance professionals will be critical if Thailand wants to keep pace with growing solar demand.

More recommendations on strengthening Thailand’s solar workforce can be found here.

The findings from Phuket reveal the simple reality that clean energy is increasingly becoming an economic opportunity. As energy costs rise and solar becomes more affordable, more Thais are looking to build careers and businesses around the transition.

That surge in demand for solar training is a signal that people are ready to participate in Thailand’s clean energy future. The task now is ensuring they have the skills, support, and opportunities to help build it.

Want to learn more about how we’re building the clean energy ecosystem in Thailand and in 13 other countries across the globe? Check out our programs here.

Written by Kotchakorn (Build) Khwamchareon, Head of Programs at New Energy Nexus Thailand

Working with clean energy entrepreneurs across Thailand and Southeast Asia, I have sat in enough founder meetings, investor conversations and government consultations to recognise patterns that do not show up clearly in official data. One of them has been troubling me for a while: Thailand has the talent, demand and industrial base to build clean energy companies, but not yet the policy environment that makes it commercially rational for many of them to grow here.

The recent pressure on Thai fuel prices has made that gap harder to ignore. When global fossil fuel markets move, households, businesses and the wider economy feel it quickly. But Thailand’s ability to reduce that exposure depends on more than importing cleaner technology or setting long-term targets. It also depends on whether local clean energy startups can access the capital, incentives and market conditions they need to build practical alternatives at home.

Earlier this year, as part of research into Thailand’s clean energy investment landscape, I did deep interviews with three start-ups and two of the country’s leading venture and corporate venture funds active in clean energy and climate technology. I asked where their capital was going. Every single planned 2025 climate investment from all five funds was allocated outside Thailand. One fund reported a portfolio that was 80 percent United States, 15 percent Europe, and zero percent Thailand. When I asked why, the answer was consistent across conversations.

As one corporate investor put it: In four to five years of looking, they had not found a climate startup in Thailand, or anywhere in Southeast Asia, that met their criteria. “There isn’t sufficient capital. There isn’t sufficient incentive. So we don’t see world-class startups emerging in this region.”

I have heard versions of that statement many times. What strikes me now, with diesel having recently peaked at 50.54 baht per litre after climbing from 29.94 baht in February, is that it describes a loop that Thailand has been unable to break, and is now paying a concrete price for.

Thailand imports 57 percent of its crude oil from the Middle East. When the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed following the conflict with Iran, there was no domestic cushion. The government managed the emergency competently enough, releasing reserves, banning exports, and suspending fuel levies. But none of those measures could substitute for the distributed clean energy capacity and domestically anchored innovation that a decade of better-designed investment conditions might have produced.

The investors I spoke with are not wrong in their observations. Thailand’s climate startup ecosystem has not yet generated the density of investable companies that would shift those capital flows. But the question worth asking is why, and the answer is more specific than it might appear.

Working directly with founders, a pattern becomes clear. The ones who don’t make it past the earliest stage are not possibly short on technical capability or market understanding. They run out of money during the gap between spending on early development and receiving reimbursement from public grant programmes, which is typically how Thai government innovation support is structured. You spend first, document the costs, and wait. For a founder without reserves, that wait is the end of the company. The founders who survive it are disproportionately those with family capital to bridge the gap, which narrows the pipeline in ways that are plainly visible if you are sitting across the table from these teams regularly.

The second pattern I keep encountering involves incorporation. A founder I worked with recently built methane-reduction technology for livestock farms. The team is Thai. The farms are Thai. The product was developed in Thailand. When the company sought investment, no investor would put capital into a Thai legal entity. The holding structure moved to Singapore. The intellectual property and the future financial returns of that company now sit outside Thailand’s legal and financial system, before the company has generated a single baht in revenue. This is not unusual. It has become, in my observation, close to standard practice for Thai climate tech companies that manage to attract any serious investor attention.

Both of these patterns are individually rational. The grant structure reflects standard public accountability requirements. The Singapore incorporation reflects genuine investor preferences around regulatory clarity and exit pathways. Together, they produce an outcome that serves neither Thailand’s energy security nor its long-term economic interests. The country develops the technology and loses the value.

From where I sit, three changes would materially shift these conditions without requiring large new public expenditure.

The most fundamental is a carbon price, even a modest one, with a published schedule showing how it will rise over time. A clean energy startup building emissions-reduction technology in Thailand currently cannot convert its environmental impact into revenue, because there is no sufficient liquid, predictable, and economy-wide domestic mechanism to do so. Without that conversion, the financial model does not close, and experienced investors identify that problem immediately. Announcing a credible carbon pricing trajectory would improve bankability, not by changing the technology but by giving investors a future revenue logic.

The second is a government-anchored climate fund of funds, with the state acting as a limited partner in commercially managed investment vehicles rather than selecting companies itself. South Korea built its venture capital market depth partly through this mechanism, via the Korea Venture Investment Corporation, which draws in professional fund managers and co-investors by providing a credible anchor. Thailand has the fiscal capacity to do something similar at a meaningful scale for climate and clean energy. The effect would be to make Thailand a viable destination for the kind of institutional capital that currently goes to Singapore, the US, or Europe by default.

The third is a change in how government grants reach early-stage founders: upfront milestone-based disbursements rather than reimbursements. Singapore’s Startup SG programme works this way for exactly the reason I described above. Getting capital to founders at the moment they need to spend it, rather than after they have somehow survived without it, produces more companies that reach the stage where private capital will consider them. The cost to the government is the same. The timing is different, and the timing is what matters.

I recognise that none of these changes happen quickly, and that the immediate priority for Thailand’s policymakers is managing a fuel crisis, not redesigning innovation grant structures. But the research we conducted earlier this year, before the Iran conflict, already pointed toward the same structural gap that the crisis has now made visible at national scale. The investors and founders I have been talking to for years were already describing, in their own terms, the conditions that left Thailand exposed. The crisis is new. The underlying problem is not.

Kotchakorn (Build) Khwamchareon is Head of Programs at New Energy Nexus Thailand. New Energy Nexus is a global non-profit supporting clean energy entrepreneurs across more than 14 countries. She works with founders, investors, and policymakers across Thailand to design the conditions for climate technology to scale within emerging economies.

A young IT engineer inspects data center servers. Stock photo

Written by Wenxuan (Shane) Sun, Business Development & Program Director at New Energy Nexus China

As artificial intelligence (AI) tech progresses, data centers and intelligent computing facilities are becoming a new class of energy-intensive infrastructure. Globally, data centers consumed around 415 TWh of electricity in 2024, about 1.5% of global electricity demand, and the International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that this could roughly double by 2030. The United States and China are expected to account for the majority of this growth.

This creates a critical question for the clean energy transition: will AI-driven computing become another source of grid stress, or can it become part of the solution?

For NEX China, this is the starting point of our work on computing-power coordination, or suan-dian xietong (算电协同) in Chinese, the coordination between computing demand and power system operation.

As we begin a new project to explore the challenges and opportunities in this space, we wanted to cover the basics and what it means for entrepreneurs.

What is computing-power coordination?

Computing-power coordination refers to the practice of aligning computing workloads with the availability, location, timing, and constraints of electricity supply.

In simple terms, not all computing tasks need to happen in the same place or at the same moment. Some workloads are highly time-sensitive, such as real-time financial transactions, autonomous driving, or emergency response systems. But others, including AI model training, batch data processing, rendering, simulation, and certain industrial AI tasks, may have more flexibility. They can potentially be shifted in time, shifted across locations, or adjusted according to grid conditions.

This matters because electricity systems are increasingly shaped by two simultaneous trends. On the supply side, more solar and wind power are entering the grid, but their output is variable. On the demand side, data centers and AI computing loads are growing rapidly, often becoming large, concentrated electricity consumers. This raises a question: when can computing loads function as flexible resources for the grid, rather than only as fixed demand?

The answer is not automatic. Computing loads are not inherently flexible. They only become useful to the power system when the right technical, commercial, and institutional conditions are in place. These include dispatch authority, service-level agreements, measurement methods, settlement rules, and clear responsibility among grid operators, data center operators, computing platforms, and energy users.

Why does this matter for the energy industry?

The energy sector is entering a new phase in which flexibility is as important as capacity.

Historically, power systems were designed around predictable demand and controllable generation. Today, the system must integrate variable renewable energy, electrified transport, distributed solar, batteries, industrial electrification, and now fast-growing digital infrastructure. AI data centers add a new layer of complexity: according to the IEA, AI-focused data center electricity consumption grew by 50% in 2025, while total data center electricity demand grew by 17%.

The challenge is not only the total amount of electricity consumed. It is also where, when, and how that demand appears. Data centers are large, concentrated, and often developed faster than energy infrastructure can be planned and built. The IEA notes that this mismatch between fast-moving data center development and slower-moving energy investment can create risks for grid planning, electricity prices, and system reliability.

Computing-power coordination offers a different lens. Instead of asking only how to supply more electricity to data centers, it asks whether some computing demand can be shaped to support the grid. A few examples:

• A data center could increase computing activity when local solar output is high and reduce or shift non-urgent workloads when the distribution grid is constrained.
• AI training tasks could be scheduled in regions and time windows with abundant renewable energy.
• Computing platforms could offer differentiated service levels, where users pay less for flexible computing tasks that can be delayed or relocated.
• Data centers with batteries, advanced energy management systems, and workload orchestration could participate in demand response or other flexibility markets.

This does not mean turning data centers into power plants; it means recognizing that digital infrastructure and energy infrastructure are becoming interdependent. The next generation of clean energy innovation will not only be about producing greener electrons, but also about designing smarter demand.

Why China?

China is one of the most important places to explore this question because it sits at the intersection of three global trends: rapid growth in AI infrastructure, massive deployment of renewable energy, and real-world grid integration challenges.

China’s total computing power scale already ranks second globally, and by the end of 2023, the country had more than 8.1 million data center racks in use. China’s government has also set clear green data center targets, including lowering the average data center PUE to below 1.5 by 2025 and increasing data center renewable energy utilization by 10% annually.

But China is not only building large data center clusters. It is also facing a very practical distributed energy challenge. County-scale rooftop solar programs and distributed renewables have expanded rapidly in many regions, creating new stress on local distribution grids. In these contexts, renewable generation is often location-bound, while computing loads remain largely inflexible.

This makes China a valuable “stress test” environment. Lessons from China can not be copied directly to Europe, Southeast Asia, or other markets, but they can help answer questions that many systems will soon face: How should grids coordinate with new digital loads? What kinds of computing demand are truly flexible? How should flexibility be measured and rewarded? Where do technical possibilities break down because institutions, contracts, or market rules are not ready?

What can entrepreneurs do?

Entrepreneurs play an important role because computing power coordination is not a single technology. It is an emerging system innovation field that requires new tools, platforms, services, and business models.

Entrepreneurs can develop workload orchestration tools that classify computing tasks by urgency, location sensitivity, carbon intensity, and grid impact. They can build energy-aware AI infrastructure. This may include software that links AI training schedules with renewable energy availability, electricity prices, grid congestion signals, or carbon intensity data. They can also develop measurement and verification systems. Without credible measurement, it is impossible to prove that computing loads have provided real grid value. In addition, there is space for new commercial models: flexible computing contracts, green computing products, demand response aggregation for data centers, carbon-aware cloud services, and location-aware computing marketplaces.

NEX China’s approach is therefore deliberately hypothesis-driven and simulation-based, focusing on decision-useful learning before large-scale deployment. Follow us to stay updated on our findings here.

Wenxuan (Shane) Sun has extensive experience in China’s wind and renewable energy markets, both within the industry and through market consulting.