Climate Tech’s Relay Race

Bringing climate technologies from the lab to commercial scale is not a sprint, nor even a marathon. It is a relay race that depends on coordination between many different players.

The rapid growth of solar energy demonstrates what can happen once technology successfully crosses the gap between early development and large-scale deployment. Yet for many emerging climate technologies, reaching the first commercial-scale facility, or FOAK (First of a Kind), remains one of the most difficult stages of development. Companies must overcome not only significant financing gaps, but also challenges involving supply chains, organizational capabilities, regulation, insurance, market fit, and industrial partnerships.

Many of these barriers can be reduced through earlier engagement with the partners that will eventually be needed for commercialization. The experiences of companies such as UBQ and LanzaTech show the value of involving industrial partners and regulators well before their participation becomes an immediate necessity. Early collaboration can help companies design better pilots, collect the right data, anticipate regulatory requirements, strengthen supply chains, and reduce costly changes later in the process.

Successfully scaling climate innovation therefore requires more than a technology that works. Technology companies, investors, industrial partners, insurers, regulators, suppliers, and customers must prepare for the next stage together. The earlier these actors begin coordinating, the greater the chances that promising climate technologies will make the journey from the laboratory to their first commercial facility, and ultimately to widespread deployment.

To read the full article, visit our website in Hebrew.