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Why we’re watching these climate tech companies

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This week, we released our 2026 version of our Climate Tech Companies to Watch list. It’s an annual project that the MIT Technology Review team puts together. Our goal is to highlight some of the promising, interesting advances and firms we think are worth paying attention to in the world of climate and energy technology. The list is always a little ray of hope for me—there are some fascinating ideas out there for changing how we power our world or moving away from fossil fuels to reduce the greenhouse-gas emissions that cause climate change. Our chosen companies tend to reflect several aspects of the current moment. Here are some of the companies we picked and the key themes worth highlighting.

执行摘要

本周，我们发布了 2026 年版“值得关注的气候科技公司”榜单。这是麻省理工科技评论（MIT Technology Review）团队共同完成的一项年度项目。我们的目标是重点介绍一些在气候和能源技术领域中，我们认为值得关注的、具有前景且有趣的进展与公司。这份榜单对我来说总是一缕希望之光——市面上存在着许多引人入胜的构想，旨在改变我们为世界供能的方式，或摆脱化石燃料，以减少导致气候变化的温室气体排放。我们所选的公司往往反映了当前时代的多个侧面。以下是我们挑选的部分公司以及值得强调的关键主题。

China is the center of the climate and energy tech world

Forgive me—I know I’ve made this point before. Feel free to call me Captain Obvious. But I think China’s dominance in energy technology is a global trend that bears repeated mentioning. China is home to the world’s largest grid, and renewables are coming online more quickly than I can wrap my head around. Contributing to that boom is Envision Energy, a renewables giant appearing on our list for the second time. The company has installed over 100 gigawatts of wind power worldwide, as well as over 50 gigawatt-hours of battery storage. Like many other Chinese companies right now, Envision is looking beyond the crowded Chinese market and setting its sights abroad, with projects in Germany, Brazil, and Australia and upcoming work in Vietnam.

中国是气候与能源科技世界的中心

请原谅我——我知道我之前已经表达过这个观点了。你们大可以叫我“显而易见队长”。但我认为，中国在能源技术领域的主导地位是一个值得反复提及的全球趋势。中国拥有世界上最大的电网，可再生能源并网的速度快到让我难以想象。远景能源（Envision Energy）正是推动这一繁荣的贡献者之一，这家可再生能源巨头已第二次登上我们的榜单。该公司在全球范围内安装了超过 100 吉瓦的风力发电设施，以及超过 50 吉瓦时的电池储能系统。像目前许多其他中国公司一样，远景能源正将目光投向拥挤的国内市场之外，瞄准海外，其项目遍布德国、巴西和澳大利亚，并即将在越南开展业务。

China is also leading innovation in key technologies.

I’ve been fascinated by the potential for next-generation batteries coming out of its companies: All the big ones, along with a host of smaller ones, are racing to develop solid-state batteries. They could be both safer than existing EV batteries and longer in range. WeLion New Energy is particularly interesting. The battery company announced a big lab result last year, achieving 824 watt-hours per kilogram—more than three times the energy density of a standard lithium-ion battery today. Lab results in battery research are notoriously difficult to scale, but WeLion is also working to deploy semi-solid-state batteries, which could come to fruition faster than purely solid-state cells while still improving on lithium-ion’s performance.

中国也在关键技术创新方面处于领先地位。

我一直对中国公司所展现的下一代电池潜力深感着迷：所有大型企业以及众多小型企业都在竞相开发固态电池。它们不仅比现有的电动汽车电池更安全，续航里程也更长。卫蓝新能源（WeLion New Energy）尤为引人注目。这家电池公司去年宣布了一项重大的实验室成果，能量密度达到每公斤 824 瓦时——是当今标准锂离子电池能量密度的三倍多。电池研究中的实验室成果向来以难以规模化著称，但卫蓝也在致力于部署半固态电池，这种电池可能比纯固态电池更快实现商业化，同时仍能提升锂离子电池的性能。

Everybody wants a piece of the data center pie

We included just three companies from the US on the list, and two of them have received a major boost from Big Tech as companies look to power data centers. (The third, Brimstone, is leaning into another political hot topic, critical minerals.) Technologies that can provide consistent power are in high demand. Fervo Energy is bringing next-generation geothermal power to the grid by using horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing to make it practical in more places. The company went public in May, raising $2.2 billion in its IPO, and plans to have a gigawatt’s worth of plants operational by the end of 2030.

每个人都想分食数据中心这块蛋糕

我们在榜单中仅收录了三家美国公司，其中两家在科技巨头寻求为数据中心供电的过程中获得了巨大的推动力。（第三家公司 Brimstone 则专注于另一个政治热点话题：关键矿产。）能够提供持续电力的技术需求旺盛。Fervo Energy 正通过水平钻井和水力压裂技术，将下一代地热能引入电网，使其在更多地方具备实用性。该公司于 5 月上市，在首次公开募股（IPO）中筹集了 22 亿美元，并计划在 2030 年底前实现 1 吉瓦的电厂装机容量。

X-energy is building helium-cooled small modular nuclear reactors.

The reactors’ small size lends flexibility, and the company is currently working on a 320-megawatt cluster of them in collaboration with Amazon in Richland, Washington. (For what it’s worth, I’m interested in what this technology could do for industrial facilities—the company has a deal with Dow that could see it deployed at one of the company’s chemical plants in the early 2030s.)

X-energy 正在建造氦冷小型模块化核反应堆。

反应堆的小尺寸带来了灵活性，该公司目前正与亚马逊合作，在华盛顿州里奇兰市建设一个 320 兆瓦的反应堆集群。（值得一提的是，我对这项技术能为工业设施带来什么很感兴趣——该公司与陶氏化学达成了一项协议，可能在 2030 年代初将其部署在陶氏的一家化工厂中。）

The grid needs support, and energy storage will be a key piece moving forward

I know, I know—I haven’t stopped talking about batteries since I started writing this newsletter four years ago. But the energy storage market has surpassed even my expectations over that time. And as solar and wind quickly come online, they need storage to help them meet more of the grid’s demand. Form Energy is on the list for a third time for its iron-air batteries, which could enable cheaper long-duration energy storage. The company has a massive project in the works, to the tune of 30 gigawatt-hours, which will be used to help power a Google data center. It could be the world’s largest battery project in terms of capacity by the time it comes online, which is expected to happen in phases between 2028 and 2031.

电网需要支持，而储能将是未来发展的关键一环

我知道，我知道——自从我四年前开始写这份通讯以来，我就一直在谈论电池。但在这段时间里，储能市场的发展甚至超出了我的预期。随着太阳能和风能迅速并网，它们需要储能来帮助满足更多的电网需求。Form Energy 因其铁-空气电池第三次上榜，这种电池有望实现更廉价的长时储能。该公司目前正在进行一个规模巨大的项目，容量高达 30 吉瓦时，将用于为谷歌的数据中心供电。该项目预计在 2028 年至 2031 年间分阶段上线，届时它可能成为全球容量最大的电池项目。

Taking another tack, Energy Dome is using compressed carbon dioxide to store energy on the grid.

This technology is already cheaper than lithium-ion batteries for longer durations (think 10 hours or more), and the company is working to scale quickly. I covered the company in 2022, before it had its first commercial plant running. Now it has plans for over 30 gigawatt-hours’ worth of plants around the world, including one with Google in Ireland that’s slated to come online in 2030. And Moment Energy is working to use the million EV batteries that are expected to reach the end of their life by 2030. The company has a facility in Vancouver, British Columbia, that repurposes used batteries for backup power.

换个角度来看，Energy Dome 正在利用压缩二氧化碳在电网中存储能量。

对于更长的持续时间（比如 10 小时或以上）而言，这项技术已经比锂离子电池更便宜，且该公司正致力于快速扩大规模。我在 2022 年曾报道过该公司，当时它的第一座商业工厂尚未运行。现在，它计划在全球范围内建设超过 30 吉瓦时的工厂，其中包括与谷歌在爱尔兰合作的一个项目，预计于 2030 年上线。此外，Moment Energy 正在努力利用预计到 2030 年将达到使用寿命终点的数百万块电动汽车电池。该公司在不列颠哥伦比亚省温哥华市设有一处设施，将废旧电池重新利用于备用电源。

This year hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows for climate tech.

But I’m hopeful that some of the companies on this list, and the technologies they build, will keep nudging us in the right direction. This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.

对气候科技而言，今年并非一切都一帆风顺。

但我怀有希望，榜单上的部分公司及其所构建的技术，将继续推动我们朝着正确的方向前进。本文摘自麻省理工科技评论的每周气候通讯《The Spark》。如需每周三在收件箱中接收该通讯，请点击此处注册。