CERA Week is a usually superb bellwether of energy sector moods, and this year was no exception.
Overall I found the tone last week to be pragmatic, occasionally even downbeat.
Amin Nasser of Saudi Aramco captured the general mood in his comments (https://lnkd.in/gMSQViKF), noting that consumers “want energy that helps protect the planet and their pocket books, with minimal disruption to supplies and their daily lives”.
His full comments are worth reading, and don’t mince words on critical points I agree with such as:
😡 Tribalism and hyperbole are deeply counterproductive to addressing our collective climate challenge
📈 Consumers in lower and middle income countries (who use far less resources than those in the wealthier world today) will increasingly drive the climate agenda
🏔 The hashtag#energytransition is not on track
The final point is a serious concern, because out in the real world the clock is ticking.
Just prior to CERA I had an update from the Berkeley Earth team, and though I was aware of recent increases in ocean temperature, it was still shocking to see record daily temperatures now observed for over a year.
But unfortunately the conversations and presentations at CERA highlighted how difficult it will be to pull off the badly needed shift away from fossil fuels, especially natural gas.
For example, although ⚡ electrification is a primary pathway to decarbonize a range of consumer and industrial demand, there is simply not enough power, transmission capacity, and even just grid hardware to go around. Particularly as the power demands of data centers grow and tech companies fill up grid connection queues, planners and policymakers will need to take extra care to ensure decarbonization projects aren’t pushed back in the line.
So in the end I left Houston exhausted and concerned, but still optimistic.
To quote Nasser one final time
“the world has been trying to transition in fog, without a compass”.
This compass is precisely what we are building at Othersphere, helping those scaling sustainable infrastructure to build better projects, faster. The energy transition is a global challenge that will be solved at the local level—step-by-step, project-by-project.
CERA was full of smart people working together to make this happen.
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Data center locations today show a moderate skew toward grid regions with lower carbon intensity—but how much does this really influence site selection?
At CERAWeek 2025, data centers were very heavily discussed, including topics such as geopolitics, data sovereignty, monetization opportunities for previously-stranded energy supplies, and the overall uncertainty data centers have introduced into energy demand forecasting.
Climate change factored into conversations on the role of natural gas, nuclear, and geothermal, but global warming was generally just one of the many complexities described by the developers, funders, and policymakers working on the future of compute.
Data center locations today show a moderate skew toward grid regions with lower carbon intensity—but how much does this really influence site selection?
Speed to market, economics, data sovereignty, and end-user latency are some of the most critical factors for developers, operators, and financiers of compute / AI infrastructure.
Focus on carbon intensity of compute will continue to grow however, particularly as policymakers and the public become ever more aware of the rising energy demand and climate impact of data centers.
But as the annual solar PV capacity factor data above shows, today’s data centers show little sun-seeking behavior. Hourly capacity factor data shows a similar pattern.
This makes sense given the challenges created by solar intermittency and limited incentive to experiment with new operating strategies to date.
But in the right locations, this will likely shift going forward due to:
⬡ Falling delivered costs of solar power
⬡ Increasing market and behind-the-meter supply options
⬡ Corporate GHG goals and public attention shaping demand
⬡ Proving out reliable data center operating strategies that take advantage of intermittent power and/or load shifting.
Annual solar PV capacity factor data above shows, today’s data centers show little sun-seeking behavior. Hourly capacity factor data shows a similar pattern.
Please reach out if you would like to learn more about Othersphere, our products, and opportunities to partner in accelerating global industrial decarbonization.
