Is Cleantech Stalling or Simply Growing Up?

Lately, I’ve heard the same question come up again and again:

• Has cleantech lost momentum?
• Has the energy transition stalled?
• Is this as good as it gets?

With struggling EV startups, delayed hydrogen projects, and cautious investors, it’s an understandable concern.

But I don’t think clean energy is in decline, I think it’s growing up.

Over the past decade, the sector benefited from huge optimism and easy capital. Almost anything labelled “green” could attract funding. That phase is over; it’s not a failure, more a necessary correction. Capital hasn’t disappeared; it’s become more selective. Investment is still flowing into areas that work: grid-scale storage, renewables, electrification, and smart energy systems. Even in a tougher macro environment, energy transition investment reached record levels in 2023. The difference now is discipline. Technology isn’t the reasons why progress is slowing, it is more specifically issues with infrastructure and policy. We already know how to generate enormous amounts of renewable power. But outdated grids, slow permitting, and political uncertainty mean much of it can’t be used effectively. In markets such as Germany, California, and Australia, clean energy is increasingly curtailed because it can’t reach consumers. That’s not a failure of innovation but a failure of systems.

Public fatigue is also real. People care about climate change, but they care even more about affordability, reliability, and security. Rising energy bills and inconsistent policy signals have created resistance in many countries. Too often, the transition has been framed in technical or ideological terms, rather than human ones. At the same time, geopolitics has changed the equation. The focus on energy is no longer just about emissions, it is increasingly focused on national security, supply-chain resilience, and control. Since the war in Ukraine, governments have been forced to prioritise stability alongside decarbonisation.

Not all of cleantech is struggling. Some areas were overhyped, whilst others are quietly scaling. Large renewable portfolios continue to expand, grid-scale battery deployments are accelerating, and heat pump adoption is rising across Northern Europe. This suggests an industry that is consolidating not collapsing.

The suggestion is one of overselling on speed and underselling on complexity. Rebuilding energy systems takes decades. It requires coordination across infrastructure, regulation, capital, and behaviour, not just technological breakthroughs.

The next phase won’t look exciting. It will be about maintenance, optimisation, and reliability. Less hype. More hard work.

So what does all this really mean?

If clean energy is entering a more mature phase, the implications are clear.

• For business leaders: energy is no longer a peripheral ESG issue. It directly affects costs, resilience, supply chains, and competitiveness. Leaders who treat energy as a strategic asset will outperform those who treat it as a branding exercise.
• For investors: the era of easy wins is over. Value will come from infrastructure, optimisation, and long-term platforms not from short-term narratives or over-promised technology.
• For policymakers: credibility now matters more than ambition. Stable regulation and faster permitting will do more for decarbonisation than another set of distant targets.

And for all of us, it means the transition will be slower, more complex, and more political than many expected, but also more durable if it’s built properly.

So no, I don’t think cleantech is dying.

It’s entering the phase where success depends less on ambition and more on execution.

Reference points

• BloombergNEF — Energy transition investment reached record levels in 2023 despite tighter capital markets
• International Energy Agency — Grid constraints and permitting delays now represent the primary bottlenecks to deployment
• Renewable curtailment trends observed in Germany, California, and Australia
• Ongoing scale-up of renewables and storage by NextEra Energy, Ørsted, Fluence, and Tesla Energy
• Execution-phase framing echoed in recent analysis from firms such as McKinsey & Company and Boston Consulting Group

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