The global drive to reduce carbon emissions has created a huge demand for clean energy and fuelled massive growth in renewables and electrification. This has opened up opportunities for entrepreneurs and the industries serving these markets, from power generation, storage and distribution to the underlying electrical cables that connect everything into the grid. Here are three companies striving to make the clean transition happen.
Ramping up renewables
Having grown up in Venezuela, entrepreneur Carlos Guinand understood first-hand both the power and the pitfalls of fossil-fuel economies. Today he is cofounder of Sonnedix, a global producer of renewable energy. He set out on his mission to build the company at a time when renewables were still lesser-known technologies. Nevertheless, Guinand had a strong vision for the future.
He says: “In the early 2000s, it was clear that the energy system needed to evolve. When I looked at the renewable energy space, I saw an industry at the intersection of several powerful forces: the environmental imperative, the financial fundamentals driven by falling technology costs, and the geopolitics around energy. But more personally, it brought together my two biggest passions: people and technology. I’ve always been deeply curious about the future and ‘what’s next’, how technology reshapes the way we live, and how people drive that change.”
Sonnedix owns renewable energy plants and sells electricity. The company develops, builds, and operates globally, primarily in solar, with storage playing an increasingly important role. Launched in 2009 with a 1MW project in Spain it now has 11,000 MW of controlled capacity around the world.
Clean energy commitment
Sixteen years ago, however, renewable technology was still in its infancy. Institutional capital was still in the process of maturing its understanding of the asset class, and the market was highly fragmented. The challenges were real, from navigating nascent regulatory frameworks and building trust in a technology that was not fully understood, to managing prices that still needed to be proven they would drop.
Guinand says: “We take a deeply responsible approach to our communities, the land we use, and how we produce energy. Today, we have over 11,000 MW of controlled capacity globally and in 2024 alone we produced enough renewable energy to power approximately 1.8 million households.
“We’ve also built a team of more than 650 people. I’ve always believed a big part of our job is to hire those who are smarter than us – you never want to be the smartest person in the room – and that’s how we grow.”
The hidden electrification infrastructure
Electrical cables might be the unseen component in many of these evolving industries, but they are nonetheless fundamental to the proper functioning of almost all new advances associated with modern life.
Eland Cables connects projects across the world’s burgeoning green power network, and power and control systems, equipment and infrastructure. Founder and executive director JS Pelland has steered the company through a 400% growth in turnover over the last 10 years to over £300 million today. This growth has arisen predominantly from supplying power cables to industries as diverse as railways, renewable energy and data centers.
A former finance executive originally from Québec, Pelland moved to London and took over what was then an SME-sized electrical cable supply company as part of a management buy-out from an LSE-listed conglomerate nearly 20 years ago.
It was a meeting of minds and the start of a friendship with fellow board members that saw him join the business as an owner and director, beginning a journey of innovating and expanding what has become Europe’s fastest-growing cable supplier to critical infrastructure.
Its Cable Lab has become a center of technical excellence in the cable industry, working with clients that include Network Rail, BAA, Vodafone, Eurotunnel, Siemens and UK Power Networks on large-scale electrification and decarbonization projects.
Pelland says: “With the ongoing transition from burning carbon molecules to the transmission of electrons as a source of power, cable suppliers such as Eland Cables have been presented with a unique opportunity to collaborate with industry leaders on shaping the world’s changing power landscape. The future of our business is intrinsically linked to the pace of the 21st century’s technological advancement and adoption.”
New life for retired EV batteries
Second-life battery storage systems reduce diesel reliance in off-grid communities, enabling commercial and industrial organizations to manage peak demand and EV charging loads. Moment Energy, founded by four engineers who met while building electric racing cars at university, is repurposing retired EV batteries to address grid resilience and renewable integration challenges.
The company is on a mission to repurpose every retired EV battery by 2030 and is building North America’s first second-life battery gigafactory. Moment Energy partners with automakers and utilities to create circular economies, with systems already powering remote sites across Canada and expanding into grid-scale applications.
CEO and cofounder Edward Chiang’s conviction about energy reliability was solidified in 2018. He was working on nuclear energy research for the Canadian government near Ottawa when a tornado hit. “We lost power for 24 hours,” he says. “Witnessing the local grocery store discarding food, and the hospital powerless was a stark wake-up call that ignited my passion to ensure everyone has access to clean, reliable, and affordable energy.”
Clean energy for all
Moment Energy was launched in 2020. Beyond the drive for energy access, the team was also confronted by a significant environmental challenge: what to do with retiring electric vehicle (EV) batteries. “We discovered that only about 5% of these batteries were being responsibly recycled,” says Chiang. “This presented a clear opportunity to create a circular economy solution.”
He points out that EV batteries often retire from vehicles with significant remaining capacity; an average of over 80%. Instead of heading prematurely to recycling, which can be costly and complex, the company repurposes them into battery energy storage systems (BESS), which extends their useful life for another 10 to 15 years.
To date, the company has raised a total of $52 million, including a $3.5 million seed funding in 2021, a $20.3 million DOE grant, and a $15 million Series A in 2025. While its initial large-scale manufacturing expansion focuses on North America, its global vision is to enable all retired EV batteries to be repurposed by 2030, an opportunity driven by an estimated 953 GWh of available batteries.
Chiang says: “Our aim is to enable broader repurposing efforts, not only through our own manufacturing but also by providing our battery management system (BMS) technology to other companies as well as our certified battery testing services, which are crucial for EV battery repurposing. We believe that clean energy is a fundamental human right, and our team is committed to making clean, reliable, and affordable power accessible to everyone across the globe.”
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