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2026 BNEF Pioneers Finalists Tackle Data Center Sustainability, Flattening the Duck Curve, and Lower-Carbon Commercial Transport
Each year, BloombergNEF runs the BNEF Pioneers competition to identify and celebrate standout innovations that we think could play an important role in the energy transition. To frame the competition, BNEF Pioneers identifies three key ‘challenges’ annually, informed by the technology gaps highlighted in BNEF’s long-term outlooks across energy, transport and materials. Pioneers are evaluated based on their potential impact, innovation, and likelihood of adoption.
BNEF has selected 29 Pioneers finalists, out of over 600 applications, for this year’s competition. Descriptions of this year’s challenges and our chosen competition finalists are outlined below. Also listed are the companies named as “wildcard” finalists, developing technologies that BNEF believes could play an important role in decarbonization but were outside the scope of the three focus challenges.
Pioneers winners will be selected from this finalist pool and announced in mid-April.
Congratulations to our finalists!
Challenge 1: Technologies for Sustainable, Scalable Data Center Infrastructure
Explosive growth in data center demand, which is driven by the surge in the use of AI, is straining power grids, water systems, and materials supply chains. BNEF projects data centers will become a major user of electricity, consuming 1,600 terawatt-hours by 2035, about 4.4% of projected global electricity demand and comparable to some of the world’s largest economies.
With this challenge, BNEF was looking for technologies that support this data center growth while meeting energy and climate goals.
The selected finalists focus on improving efficiencies in cooling and power for data centers, alongside ways to make data centers better equipped to respond to grid constraints.
2026 finalists:
Challenge 2: Flattening the Duck Curve
As solar and wind installations have grown, many grids have come to face steep midday net-load dips and evening ramps, known as the “duck curve.” In regions with high renewable deployment, this is already reducing project financial returns and slowing clean energy investment. In Spain, a market where renewables account for 50% of the electricity mix last year, average monthly realized prices for solar were 40% lower than average spot prices over the last 12 months.
With this challenge, we were looking for technologies and business models that have demonstrated success in shifting demand to better align with power supply and improving asset economics at scale.
The selected finalists are helping utilities enable flexible demand response and load shifting, optimizing distributed energy resources, enabling vehicle-to-grid charging, deploying long-duration energy storage, and electrifying heating solutions.
2026 finalists:
Challenge 3: Decarbonizing Shipping and Heavy-Duty Transport
Shipping and heavy-duty road transport are among the hardest sectors to decarbonize because of their heavy reliance on fossil fuels. These segments face steep technical and economic barriers – long duty cycles, energy-dense fuel needs, and fragmented infrastructure. BNEF expects carbon emissions from these sectors to fall by roughly a quarter by 2050 thanks to fuel switching and electrification, but without significant technological innovation, they will struggle to achieve net-zero emissions.
With this challenge, BNEF was looking for solutions that significantly reduce emissions from long-haul road freight, marine shipping, and related logistics systems at the component, system, or network level.
The selected finalists cover a wide range of innovations, including electric trucks and charging depots, wind-assist and hull-optimization technologies for ships, and carbon-capture solutions that cut emissions from freight and maritime transport.
2026 finalists:
Wildcards
Our wildcard finalists this year are developing innovative solutions across batteries and critical materials, low-carbon industrial processing, clean mobility, and next-generation agricultural productivity.
2026 finalists:
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