As the global push for sustainable clean energy solutions heats up, participants in the renewables and sustainability sectors are making substantial investments in new infrastructure and technology innovation to help achieve net zero carbon emissions by the year 2050.

This initiative is crucial to slowing the earth’s warming, which is putting the planet’s vital ecosystems and future food security at risk. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), to reach this target worldwide, investment in clean energy alone must triple to $4 trillion by 2030.

“Private investors and family offices must play a pivotal role in the future of clean energy,” said Andreas Mustad, co-founder and managing director of Nexwell, a global investment group investing in sustainability initiatives aimed at decarbonizing the planet. He adds, “These investors are change agents backing innovative technologies and new strategies that are moving the clean energy industry toward a more sustainable future, paving the way for larger infrastructure players to roll up these assets once scale is achieved.

“Now, more than ever, is the time that we as investors need to keep an open mind to be able to change the energy landscape by promoting new sustainable solutions and opportunities that have real and measurable impact on the decarbonization of our planet,” he continued.

State of Clean Energy

In an analysis released by the IEA in January 2024, the organization reported that the world increased its renewable energy capacity by 1.5 times in 2023 from the previous year. Solar photovoltaic (PV) systems accounted for 75% of global renewable capacity additions, the IEA said. Furthermore, the agency has proactively forecast that solar energy will lead growth in the power sector in the United States through 2025.

Nexwell, which operates with offices in London, Madrid, and Miami, is poised to be part of that growth.

Late in 2023, Nexwell announced a partnership with Urban Solar, a South Florida-based leading provider of solar systems to local residents and commercial/industrial users. To date, the company is credited with over 5,000 installations. Nexwell’s financial investment will aid in the expansion of Urban Solar’s current operations and promote its growth into additional U.S. markets.

“Our partnership with Urban Solar carries with it the mission to build scalable, sustainable investment platforms with capabilities and resources that will vault us toward our goal of a world where climate change is no longer a critical issue,” said Pablo Pulido, co-founder and managing director of Nexwell. “We have had the opportunity to oversee more than 200 utility-scale solar projects across five continents over the last 15 years, yet our entrance into the U.S. solar market is a first for us, and major step forward, not just for our company but also for the impact we aim to achieve with this latest strategic partnership.”

Worldwide Synergy

Nexwell has been well established in other parts of the world, including the UK where its largest portfolio company, Nexwell Power, is headquartered. Nexwell Power focuses its human and financial capital on delivering long-term and sustainable solar PV assets that have measurable impact on decarbonizing the planet. Nexwell also has a strategic development platform, Ibexia Development, which was formed in the UK in 2018. This platform operates as a joint venture with Cox Energy in Spain under the name “Ibox Energy,” which holds a portfolio of over 1.8 GW of solar PV projects in over 60 communities throughout the country.

In addition to investments made to grow solar PV’s footprint, Nexwell’s push to accelerate climate change solutions includes financial support to several start-up companies involved in clean energy initiatives. In April 2023, Nexwell participated in funding the San Francisco-based climate tech start-up company Noya PBC poised to accelerate its direct air capture technology solution to remove carbon dioxide directly from the air. The investments in carbon-capture technologies have grown significantly in the last few years, the IEP reports, and is a relatively new vector for investment in climate change solutions that aims to “draw down” the current and increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration.

As a company with a climate impact focus, Nexwell is incubating Carboncause, a company that stores carbon emissions underground as another path to reduce CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. This Madrid-based company has secured its first in a series of permit for an underground CO2 storage facility that will ultimately house over 40 million tons of carbon dioxide pulled from the air and is currently in the process of identifying additional carbon sequestration storage sites.

“Our goal is to reach one billion tons of carbon dioxide avoided or sequestered by the end of the next decade,” Mustad said. “That goal is our commitment and an integral part of our overall mission to demonstrate industry leadership by ‘walking the walk’ of sustainable solutions and paving the way for others to rise to the challenge so we can collectively transform the global energy and emissions landscape.”

Being the Example

According to Pulido, investment companies and organizations within the clean energy sector have a responsibility to create value that extends beyond investment returns.

“Defining value beyond the capital can only truly be realized when one looks at investments holistically, ensuring a balance between what is put into and around a project with what one receives from it,” he said. “For Nexwell, this pre-dates the more ubiquitous environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices, which, while still of highest priority in the operational procedures of the company, are merely a subset of a larger foundational tenet in business practices of treating all stakeholders fairly, including the communities where we operate, the environment which we touch, and all the people that come together to make a project become a reality. Energy projects are long-term ventures and do not end well for players whose plans are to merely extract cash from a community that is hosting a project.”

Carefully analyzing how day-to-day operations affect the environment, community, contractors, employees and stakeholders is crucial to the success of achieving long-term integration into the host communities and ultimately the ability to achieve scale, impact and change within the energy landscape, Pulido noted. He said that Nexwell fully embraces the opportunity to listen, learn, educate and inform through programs and other events that encourage dialogue and boost transparency.

“Whether it is bringing renewable electricity to households, monitoring water usage, onboarding mission-minded and talented individuals, or conserving plant life, our business practices and ESG frameworks support our culture and bring us to the core of our mission – to do the right thing,” he said. “Our purpose is to accelerate climate change solutions, built on those very principles of what positions Nexwell as a leader in transforming the energy landscape.”

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