SEPA’s Clean Energy Funders Forum

Full Conference programming includes six tracks of panels and presentations, Monday Deep Dives on affordability, data centers, energy storage, and AI, Main Stage programming, and the RE+ Tech & Innovation Forum. Forum focus areas include solar and storage operations and maintenance, grid stability, tandem solar technologies, AI applications, and long-duration energy storage. Its format includes a keynote, deep-dive presentations, and a closing panel. Show Floor Theater topics include grid edge, industry trends, manufacturing and logistics, installation and operations, global markets, electric drive, fuel cells and batteries, and storage. The program also includes an International Pavilion, Spotlight Country, Start-up Pavilion, and poster sessions. The General Session addresses scaling breakthrough technology into commercial deployment, manufacturing and industrial leadership, energy as a strategic advantage, and the connection between transportation and energy infrastructure.

The program addresses transportation decarbonization, clean transportation, fleet modernization, and sustainable mobility. Themes include zero-emission vehicles, charging infrastructure, energy storage, renewable fuels, fleet management technology, and AI-enabled fleet optimization. Listed sessions include “AI, Data Centers & Transportation: Competing for the Same Megawatts,” on electricity demand, grid constraints, transmission planning, utility readiness, and community considerations, and “Autonomous Transit in the Real World: The SporTran EVOLVE Story,” on electrification, automation, connected infrastructure, accessibility, and transit reliability.

Southwest Gas will host the roundtable. Participants will discuss collected information and resulting outcomes, with brief presentations from six member companies selected at the June Leaders Selection Conference. Three interactive breakout sessions will address topic-specific questions; possible topics include risk modeling, risk analysis, and integrity resources. Attendance is for Natural Gas Utility Operators Only. Recommended attendees include integrity management and DIMP program leaders, risk management and risk modeling personnel, pipeline safety and compliance professionals, and engineering staff responsible for integrity risk evaluation and mitigation across the utility.

The program combines a shared market program with concurrent Capital, Markets & Deal Strategy and Energy Innovation & Investment tracks. Sessions address capital availability, tax equity and credit transfers, private credit, project bankability, investment risk, insurance, and the effects of policy and market changes on project finance. Topics include macroeconomic and geopolitical forces affecting U.S. energy investment; capital deployment across renewables, gas-fired generation, storage, transmission, and digital infrastructure; financing firm power amid rising electricity demand; and project-finance trends and capital sources. The innovation track covers emerging energy asset classes, post-tax-credit renewable and storage economics, AI and data-center power demand, permitting and commercialization barriers, small modular reactor economics, construction risk, geothermal, long-duration storage, and distributed energy. Closing discussions consider which energy technologies and business models may scale by 2030, what makes infrastructure bankable, and investment lifecycle strategies including M&A, value creation, and exits.

The symposium focuses on accelerating deployment of transformative clean-energy technologies and policies for the public good, forging cross-sector alliances, and renewing leadership commitment to clean-energy innovation. The agenda includes a fireside chat; sessions on battery innovation and battery research; an emerging leaders panel; “Learning from Hundreds of Millions of Experiments in a Single Afternoon”; “Life Science Lessons”; and “High-Throughput Materials Science for Solar.” An innovation ecosystems panel and closing address round out the program.

A clean energy finance conference for participants across banking, private equity, asset management, project development, manufacturing, and corporate purchasing.

Resources for the Future and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation bring together researchers and stakeholders to examine energy economics, policy, and technology, with an emphasis on connecting research and decision-making. In-person attendance is by invitation only. The program includes an opening discussion on how researchers can collaborate with decision-makers amid changes in the US energy research and policy landscapes. Topical breakout sessions use lightning talks, practitioner reflections, and moderated discussion to cover energy supply chains, energy workforce transitions, industrial decarbonization, and energy system resilience. Other sessions address consumer perspectives on electricity rate design, energy efficiency, vehicle purchases, and energy policy choices; clean-energy research and deployment involving nuclear energy, geothermal technologies, carbon capture, and carbon dioxide removal; and the United States’ position in global clean-energy innovation. Facilitated networking focuses on data access, combining quantitative and qualitative research, reaching new audiences, and building communities of practice. The program also includes participant-nominated breakfast salons and a funders’ panel on emerging energy-system research needs and opportunities for impact.

The forum brings together cleantech innovators, investors, corporates, and other ecosystem participants to address grid stability, water scarcity, waste-to-value, critical minerals, and geopolitical pressures on supply chains and energy security. The program includes a closed-door, peer-level executive roundtable and an opening plenary covering cleantech trends, capital flows, innovation, and the 2027 Global Cleantech 100. Agenda topics include nuclear fuel supply and nuclear supply chains; mineral processing, refining, recovery, and the post-mining supply chain; physical AI applications in grid construction, critical minerals, and dual-use; data-center power demand, grid capacity, water use, cooling, and wastewater resource recovery. Other sessions address heat resilience, energy efficiency for AI compute, geopolitical risk across energy and cleantech supply chains, and investor perspectives on cleantech funding. Innovation Showcases feature cleantech companies presenting technologies and business models.

Plenary and concurrent sessions examine renewable project markets and financing across solar, wind, storage, and clean firm power. Topics include tax-credit policy and compliance, tariffs, domestic-content requirements, power and PPA prices, data-center and other large-load demand, interconnection, procurement, construction, supply chains, and post-subsidy project economics. Financing sessions address tax equity, transferable credits, preferred equity, debt, development capital, lender underwriting, diligence, tax insurance, risk allocation, offtake structures, storage revenue models, sponsor equity, M&A, portfolio and asset valuation, and operating performance. The program also covers community solar and commercial and industrial projects, clean-firm and co-located generation, domestic manufacturing, and the effect of changing policy and market conditions on project execution and investment.

The forum examines North American power markets across renewables, conventional generation, utilities, data centers, commercial and industrial offtakers, and government. Topics include energy-policy consistency and consequential legislation; the effects of tariffs, tax-credit regulation, geopolitical conflict, interest rates, and industry consolidation on costs and demand; FERC interconnection reform and transmission investment; and whether domestic solar and storage manufacturing can compete under changing trade and incentive rules. The program also addresses data-center and AI-driven load growth, local opposition and project approvals, equipment and workforce constraints, powered land, gas paired with battery storage, battery operations and project economics, and mergers and acquisitions in power development. Other sessions examine hyperscaler nuclear strategies, clean firm and dispatchable power, long-duration storage, geothermal, small modular reactors, gas with CCS, aging renewable assets, behind-the-meter storage, large-load flexibility, and utility–data center collaboration. Roundtable topics include understanding FEOC and tariffs, overcoming local opposition, operations and maintenance, flexibility programs, EPC partnerships, and behind-the-meter projects.

Brings together policymakers, corporate leaders, investors, utilities, legal experts, and clean energy innovators to address pressing policy issues facing the clean energy industry. The program is expected to include panels and presentations on current policy and industry trends.

The forum connects energy startups with investors, corporations, and ecosystem partners through structured one-on-one meetings and a startup pitch competition. Its stated areas of focus include electricity; materials and industrial manufacturing; fuels and chemicals; the built environment; resource management; transportation and mobility; enabling technologies; and agriculture and food. Investor participation spans venture and growth equity, family offices, corporate strategic investors, and project finance groups. The event also features technical workshops on topics shaping the energy sector.