AI energy upset

TECH

Orennia powers up with BlackRock, Temasek backing

What happened: Orennia secured Series C growth financing to scale its energy transition platform.

Decarbonization Partners, a partnership between BlackRock and Singapore’s state-owned Temasek, led the round along with existing investors.

About the company: Based in Calgary, Orennia is an energy transition platform that offers data, predictive analytics and actionable insights for investors and developers.  

Its Ion_AI platform enables project developers to allocate capital more efficiently, minimize risk, and generate higher returns. The platform spans across wind, carbon capture, clean fuels and data centres, and with a distinct focus on hard assets being deployed in the real world. 

Orennia launched its platform in July 2023, shortly after closing a US$25M Series B round.

Why it matters: The insights Orennia provides are at the heart of the energy transition, answering questions like: will these projects be economically viable? How can risk be minimized? And where are the best opportunities?

Orennia’s research includes topics like the economics of power projects, workflows for greenfield projects, interconnection capacity and queue data, battery storage modelling, and feedstock analysis to name a few. 

These questions are increasingly important as low-carbon tech scales up from pilot to commercialization and faces growing pressure from both investors and buyers to deliver economic value. 

What’s next: Orennia plans to use this growth funding to expand its capabilities bring better insights to accelerate the energy transition.

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CLIMATE CAPITAL

🏭️ Basetwo (Toronto, ON) raised US$11.5 million in Series A funding for its manufacturing optimization platform. Basetwo allows manufacturers to model their production systems and make recommendations that they say can cut energy by 20% and material inputs by 40%. 

♻️ Cyclic Materials (Kingston, ON) secured a $2 million extension for its Series B round, closing out at $55 million, for its rare earth recycling solution. The investment comes from InMotion Ventures, the investment arm of Jaguar Land Rover, and adds to the list of industry backers like Microsoft, Hitachi and BWM.

⚡️ Edgecom Energy (Toronto, ON) closed a $2.5 million seed round for its energy management platform led by Greensky Ventures. Edgecom enables large energy consumers to visualize and reduce their energy use, costs and emissions.

🌱 GoodLeaf Farms (Guelph, ON) secured an investment from Farm Credit Canada for an undisclosed amount to scale its vertical farming solution in Canada. 

☀️ NU E Power (Calgary, AB), a clean energy company, will acquire solar construction and maintenance firm Blu Dot Systems for about $4.5 million.

MILESTONES & PRODUCT

Neo Battery Materials will build a $120M silicon anode factory in Windsor, ON, close to NextStar, Stellantis, and Volkswgen plants.

Norwegian battery materials company Vianode is considering a Canadian location to supply GM with synthetic graphite.

The CEO of battery materials startup Novonix stepped down as the company looks for a replacement to lead it through scaling up.

NEWS

AI Upset

What happened: Chinese startup DeepSeek released an open-source AI model that they say requires a fraction of the compute power used by competitors like OpenAI. The startup’s AI chatbot is currently the top free app on the App Store in the U.S.

Stocks across the AI supply dropped, including Nvidia and Dutch chip equipment maker ASML. But energy equipment companies fared even worse. Siemens Energy, GE Vernova, and Constellation all dropped by double digits. 

What’s the context: The ramp up in AI data centres has been a driving force in the energy sector for the past few years. Big tech companies are investing billions to build data centres and buy the huge amounts of energy they need to train AI models. It's also driven investments in clean energy like advanced geothermal and renewed interest in nuclear energy like Microsoft’s deal to restart Three Mile Island.

Why it matters: DeepSeek’s launch could mean that AI development doesn’t necessarily need the huge amounts of hardware that the industry is planning. Less hardware means fewer data centres - and less energy to power them.

The DeepSeek approach challenges a core assumption in the AI race: better chips that suck up more energy are needed to win.

The bottom line: It's too early to know how DeepSeek will pan out, but the reaction shines a light on the industry’s pre-existing assumptions. More efficient models like DeepSeek could reshape the industry's approach to infrastructure investment and energy consumption.

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IN THE NEWS

💰️ Ontario powers up: The province approved Ontario Power Generation’s plans and a $2.1B engineering contract. The Pickering plant will produce more than 2,000MW of energy and is expected to be completed by the mid-2030s. Ontario is also investing $2B to refurbish hydro plants in Northern Ontario to secure 830MW of energy.

🗳️ Climate votes: A new non-profit called My Climate Plan is mobilizing people impacted by climate change in key swing ridings to build policy priorities and engage with political candidates. The group is modelled after the American Association for Retired People (AARP) and provides discounts on heat pumps alongside advocacy.

⛏️ Mining roadmap: The federal government and 15 First Nations signed an agreement to conduct environmental assessments for future mine development in Northern Ontario. The roadmap will look at development plans holistically, vs on a project-by-project basis. However, the province is responsible for developing roads, mines, etc. Meanwhile, B.C. will fast-track a transmission line to power new critical mineral mines in the north.

🚌 Transit on life support: The feds announced $663 million in funding for TransLink, Vancouver’s transit operator. The capital will go towards planned capital projects but doesn’t cover ongoing operational funding. Many transit agencies are still dealing with COVID-era shortfalls.

♻️ Smarter construction: Construction leaders in Ontario want to see more low-carbon materials used in public projects. The group says requiring just 20% of recycled aggregates materials in infrastructure like roads and bridges could save $260M and cut carbon pollution equivalent to removing 15 million cars from the road annually.

BIG PICTURE

Renewables made up 47% of the EU’s energy in 2024, avoiding €59 billion in fossil fuel imports

China installed a record 277GW of solar energy, more than the entire world deployed in 2022

Auditors get new guidelines on assessing ESG claims and pushing back on greenwashing

Octopus expands its “Zero Bills” business model in Scotland

Carbon market investor Silvania launches a $1.5B plan to preserve the Amazon

A new Thermal Battery Alliance forms to drive policy change and industry coalitions

Leverage point: The Arctic’s vast carbon stores are turning into a source of emissions

COMMUNITY

📆 Canada’s Carbon Removal Opportunity: I’m co-hosting this fireside chat with Carbon Removal Canada where we’ll explore the emerging landscape of carbon removal policy and markets. January 30th, Ottawa.

➡️ Discover more climate events.

💡 Request for Comment: The federal government is seeking feedback on its draft offset protocol for Direct Air Carbon Dioxide Capture and Geological Storage. Comment by March 28th.

💻️ Arbor is hiring a Manager, Business Development to drive the sales cycle for their carbon accounting platform.