Capital is moving. With 510 GW of solar and 160 GW of wind energy deployed in 2025, the world now has around 1,100 TWh of annual capacity—nearly double the power that could be produced from LNG volumes transported through the Strait of Hormuz before its closure, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air . That cushion is proving consequential. As the crisis in the Middle East drags into its third month, renewable energy investment is increasing by 25-30% annually following major supply disruptions , and institutional money that spent years chasing oil and gas is pivoting hard toward solar, wind, and batteries. The question is whether this shift will outlast the headlines—or whether it represents something more structural.
OilPrice.com reports that the expansion of solar and wind energy helped limit the impact of the Strait of Hormuz closure on global power systems, contributing to a decline in fossil fuel-based generation . This decline was offset by a 14% increase in solar and 8% in wind power generation . In the U.S. and India, solar was the single largest driver of the fall in fossil power generation, according to CREA. The geopolitical shock that was supposed to cripple economies is instead accelerating the very transition it was meant to delay. Iola Hughes, head of research at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, characterized the war's impacts as "largely two-sided: it may delay some projects in the near term, but it strengthens the structural case for renewables and energy storage by increasing the value of dispatchable, geopolitical-risk-free, non-fossil-fuel flexibility" .
Can Europe Meet Its Targets Without Chinese Turbines?
Europe faces an uncomfortable arithmetic problem. To meet its 2030 target, it needs to build 33 gigawatts of new wind turbines annually . Data from 2022, 2023 and 2024 indicates that Europe has averaged only around 16-19 GW of new installations per year —roughly half what's required. Enter China, which now dominates global wind manufacturing. Chinese turbine makers took the top six places in BloombergNEF's market share ranking for the first time in 2025, with Goldwind maintaining its position as the world's leading wind turbine supplier, installing 29.3GW .
But Nordex, one of Europe's biggest turbine makers, is pushing back. According to OilPrice.com, the German company is calling for stricter EU regulations to exclude non-western equipment from the supply chain of new renewable projects. The Financial Times reported that Nordex's CEO described Chinese rivals as a security threat. Chinese wind-turbine manufacturers account for more than half of global wind-turbine capacity but their presence in the European market is currently tiny , according to the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. In export markets, Chinese turbines remain 30–40% cheaper than Western equivalents , OilPrice.com noted, citing Rystad Energy.
The debate has turned heated. While purchases of Chinese turbines would speed up Europe's energy transition and is cost effective, the EU sees China as an economic rival and security risk that potentially undermines the union's industrial and strategic autonomy . Yet the clock is ticking. Yu Feng, the newly appointed chief executive of Windey International, characterized Chinese manufacturers' arrival in Europe as coming "sooner or later," according to Semafor . Meanwhile, Chinese wind turbine exports surged 50% in 2025, and by the end of 2025, cumulative exports had exceeded 28 GW, a thirteenfold increase from 2015 .
What's Powering the Data Center Boom?
While geopolitics reshapes one part of the energy landscape, artificial intelligence is rewriting another. Enbridge will invest $1.2 billion to build 365 MW of solar and a 200 MW/1,600 MWh battery system near Cheyenne, Wyoming, to supply Meta data centers , ESG News reported. The deal expands Enbridge and Meta's clean energy partnership to 1.6 GW across solar, wind and storage assets in the United States . Tesla will supply the batteries. The project is expected online by the end of 2027.
The scale is staggering, but so is the carbon accounting challenge. Reuters reported that Big Tech is now split over proposed changes to how companies account for clean energy use. The Greenhouse Gas Protocol is considering switching to a more granular framework, where claims of renewable power use more closely reflect where and when that power is consumed, with companies led by Google and Microsoft wanting to see more granular accounting . The current system allows companies to claim 100% renewable status on an annual basis by matching total consumption with renewable energy certificates—even if that power was generated hundreds of miles away or at a different time of day.
Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft have ramped up purchases of permanent carbon credits since the launch of ChatGPT sparked the AI race in 2022, according to data compiled for CNBC by carbon credit management platform Ceezer . The companies, together, purchased 11.92 million credits for permanent carbon removal in 2023, compared to just 14,200 in 2022 . Critics argue this is greenwashing at scale. Because clean energy supply remains constrained relative to the pace of AI infrastructure expansion, reaching net-zero emissions is "impossible" for large technology companies without carbon removal, Ceezer's CEO told CNBC .
