Industry 4.0 is producing a range of disruptive and game changing technologies that can potentially transform the energy markets over the next decade. The global energy sector is huge and encompasses power sources that range from traditional fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas, to nuclear energy, renewables like wind, solar and tidal, and even experimental green hydrogen initiatives.
The importance of the energy sector to the global economy is hard to overstate. As well as generating enormous revenues in its own right, it powers industry, agriculture and domestic utilities for a rapidly growing world population.
“Investments in the energy sector are projected to grow from $1.5 trillion today to between $2.0 and $3.2 trillion by 2040, representing growth of between 35 and 120 percent.” Source: McKinsey & Company
Major companies and new startups in the energy sector are constantly innovating to deliver novel solutions that will provide markets with secure and affordable energy over the next generation. This article explores three important energy trends in 2025 and features companies that are making a key contribution within their own energy-related fields.
Lithium Iron Phosphate Batteries
One of the most important energy trends for 2025 is the expansion of LFP – lithium iron phosphate – battery production. Cost effective energy storage capacity has always been the achilles heel of profitable innovations in the development of hybrid energy grids and the production of electric vehicles. Next generation battery materials and high capacity smart batteries are bridging that gap and disrupting traditional models, both for domestic and industrial energy consumers and for the automotive industry.
The worldwide Lithium Iron Phosphate Batteries Market is estimated to reach a value of $ 35.5 billion by 2028. This represents a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 14.9% over the next 3 years.
Green Hydrogen as a Viable Fuel
The potential advantages of hydrogen include its utility as a fuel for vehicles, and for industrial processes. Hydrogen can also function as a stored energy reserve, obviating the need for high capacity batteries to contain electricity. The major challenges facing researchers are to lower the cost of hydrogen electrolysis and to improve safe storage solutions.
The global green hydrogen market is predicted to reach $59,987.38 Million by 2032, representing a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 55.7%.
Nuclear Energy: Small Modular Reactors
Nuclear energy has traditionally been a controversial energy source, mainly due to a small number of high profile accidents. Small modular reactors (SMRs) are one of a new generation of high tech nuclear energy solutions that utilize advanced safety features and provide cost effective energy. SMRs are factory built and designs can be tailored to provide straightforward electricity generation for national or hybrid grids, or to power desalination plants, produce hydrogen, or meet other niche industrial requirements.
The global small modular reactor market size accounted for USD 6.88 billion in 2024. It is expected to reach around USD 16.13 billion by 2034, expanding at a CAGR of 8.9% over the coming decade.
Companies Pioneering New Energy Sector Trends
The following companies are recognized innovators within their own areas of expertise and offer a useful insight into how energy sector corporations are both driving and profiting from the latest energy trends.
Plug Power: Green Hydrogen Fuel Cell Solutions
Plug Power (Nasdaq: PLUG) is a US high tech company that is focused on the development of hydrogen fuel cells systems to replace conventional batteries in electric vehicles and other battery operated devices and equipment. The company was founded in 1997 and has over 3,000 employees in sites across America. The use of hydrogen as an everyday energy source represents a new frontier in the energy sector and Plug Power is a genuine pioneer. The company is already providing effective hydrogen storage systems for forklift trucks.
Plug Power’s flagship Progen fuel cell engines are capable of powering several classes of trucks and heavy off-road equipment and the company is eyeing the global markets through strategic partnerships with foreign investors. South Korea’s SK Group invested $1.5 billion in Plug Power and they are launching a new venture to penetrate the South Asian market. Plug Power is also in partnership with French car manufacturing giant Renault. These alliances are expected to put Plug Power’s hydrogen fuel technologies at the heart of two of the world’s largest automotive markets over the next decade.
ICL Group: Advanced LFP Materials and Technologies
ICL Group is a leading global specialty minerals company and is one of the ten largest fertilizer manufacturers by volume in the world. ICL Group is drawing on its minerals expertise and its considerable reserves of raw materials to position itself as a major component of the LFP battery supply chain. ICL is a global corporation with over 13,000 employees worldwide and is focused on establishing itself in both the North American and European energy markets.
ICL Group is currently constructing a $400 million state of the art manufacturing plant in St. Louis, Missouri (partly financed by the US government). It also recently announced a strategic partnership with China’s Shenzhen Dynanonic Co., Ltd to build a new lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cathode active material (CAM) facility in Spain. The initial investment in the new Sallent plant is reported as €285 million. These figures give a valuable insight into how seriously major corporations and governments are taking the development of LFP batteries and their confidence in the future role of LFP batteries in the energy sector.
TerraPower: Small Modular Reactor Designs
TerraPower is a private energy company founded by Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft. TerraPower is a leader in the field of small modular nuclear reactors and is partly funded by the US Department of Energy and the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Very few companies in the energy sector – regardless of size or market capitalization – can draw on this level of resourcing and influence and TerraPower has a highly ambitious strategic vision. The company is currently focused on the development of natrium sodium-cooled fast reactors, molten chloride fast reactors and traveling wave reactors as a safe and cost effective energy source.
One of TerraPower’s key projects is a joint venture with Warren Buffet’s PacifiCorp to build a natrium reactor in Kemmerer, Wyoming. The involvement of both Bill Gates and Warren Buffet in a single energy sector project gives some idea of the potential importance of SMRs in meeting future energy requirements. TerraPower is also devoting considerable resources to using existing stocks of depleted uranium as a reactor fuel. The US currently stockpiles an estimated 750,000 metric tons of depleted uranium. New technologies could safely power 100 million homes for a year using just 320 metric tons.
Conclusion: Understanding the Significance of Energy Trends
These three energy trends and companies provide a snapshot into the diversity of the global energy sector. They also show the depth and scale of technological innovation and investment in new solutions for ever-growing global energy requirements. The energy sector is undergoing a transformational period that can potentially deliver an abundance of cheap and reliable energy with few of the drawbacks associated with traditional energy sources.
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