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The top energy stories of 2020 — and what to expect in the year ahead

Welcome to a special edition of Insider Energy, a weekly energy newsletter brought to you by Business Insider. This week features our best stories of 2020. 

Here’s what you need to know before we dive in:

  • Want to get Insider Energy in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here
  • Do you have feedback or story tips? Reach out to me at bjones@businessinsider.com.
  • We’ll return to our regular schedule next week. 

Happy New Year to the exactly five people online this week. We made it! 

Today caps the end of a bad year, but it also marks the roughly one-year anniversary of this newsletter and our energy coverage. 

We originally set out to cover the vanguard of energy — the new technologies, and the companies producing them, that are shaping the industry’s future. Then the pandemic hit and caused oil markets to plummet to historic lows. 

From there, we broadened the beat and began reporting on how companies like Exxon and BP responded to the oil rout, while still maintaining a focus on the rise of cleantech.

Along the way, we broke big stories on the nation’s largest oil company, uncovered shady behavior in the solar industry, and sat down with some of the most prominent executives and investors.

This week, we tell the sad and sometimes hopeful tale of 2020 through our top stories of the year. 


Form Energy

The founders of Form Energy. From left, Mateo Jaramillo, Yet-Ming Chiang, Ted Wiley, William Woodford, Marco Ferrara.
Form Energy

At the start of 2020, clean technologies like batteries were on the rise and investors were circling 

In the serene days before the pandemic struck, clean-tech was gaining steam (again), and batteries were all the rage. 

But batteries were far from the only tech popping at the top of the year.

  • We wrote about digital-utility startup Arcadia and smart sensor company Sense
  • Arcadia buys renewable energy certificates, known as RECs, to match customers’ energy usage with renewable power. One of my favorite stories this year was a deep dive into the opaque $6 billion REC market

Oil worker

Oil workers in Iraq near a pipeline as it ejects oil at the Al Tuba oil field in Basra
Essam Al-Sudani/Reuters

Then the pandemic hit. It disrupted supply chains for solar panels and caused the price of oil to collapse. 

As the virus began spreading in China, factories shut down, temporarily disrupting the solar and battery supply chains and causing major research firms to revise down their 2020 forecasts for solar installations. 

But the far bigger story for energy was the pandemic’s impact on oil markets. 

Bonus: I asked a bunch of oilfield workers to send me their photos of crude oil when it comes out of the ground. You can find those bizarre images here


Exxon Mobil gas station

Carlos Jasso/Reuters

Oil companies responded by cutting staff and merging with rivals

For months, crude prices struggled to gain ground, and oil companies were forced to cut costs as a result. (Today, prices are still down about 22%.)

Highlights: This summer, we broke the news that Exxon — which had resisted a formal layoff program — quietly began cutting staff using its employee ranking system. Insiders called it a layoff in disguise. 


Sunrun

Sunrun

Renewable-energy firms have proven more resilient, but they’ve felt the pain, too

Rooftop solar installers had to shut down door-to-door sales — an important avenue for finding new customers, and a source of jobs — and move customer acquisition entirely online. 

  • We broke the news that Sunrun, the nation’s largest residential solar company, furloughed hundreds of field sales reps, and laid off at least 100 workers. 
  • We also got the inside story on Sunrun’s $3.2 billion bid for rival Vivint Solar. The deal, fusing the two largest rooftop installers, was finalized in October.

Side effects: Online lead generation can be cheaper than door-to-door sales, but it’s also ripe for misleading tactics. 

Solar’s silver lining? Some experts we spoke to earlier this year suggested that the pandemic (and power outages) could give the rooftop solar industry a boost, as homeowners seek energy security. 


BP clean energy

In February, BP’s chief executive, Bernard Looney, declared that the oil giant would become a net-zero emissions company by 2020.
Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP via Getty Images

Large fossil-fuel companies pledged to rely less on oil

Hardly a week went by without a new corporate sustainability commitment. Even large oil companies piled on to the trend. 

In related news: Shell has also committed to net-zero emissions, and we profiled a key executive behind that push

  • Most other major European oil companies including Total, Eni, and Equinor have made net-zero commitments. Occidental Petroleum is the only US company with a similar pledge. 

Big but: Oil majors including BP and Shell have spent just a small fraction of their budget on clean energy so far. We ranked the majors by their clean-energy investments.


Shell Hydrogen charging point 2019

Shell is among the largest backers of hydrogen technology
Miquel Gonzalez/Shell

The future energy industry 

What lies in the year ahead? We put that question to two dozen energy experts and CEOs. You can read all 9 of their top predictions here

  • One major takeaway is that hydrogen will be huge. We have a big explainer on the industry here, which delves into the hypes and realities. 
  • Expect the incoming Biden administration, and its powerful climate team, to be transformative, even if the government is divided.

List it: We also spent a lot of time this year finding the people and startups that are transforming the energy industry. They offer plenty of insight into what the future has in store. 

Bonus: We also gathered up all the energy startups that Bill Gates is backing


What should we cover next year? Let us know.  

You can reach me at bjones@businessinsider.com

Have a great New Year’s Eve tonight, and see you in 2021! 

– Benji 

Ps. My personal best of is a four-way tie between getting an obstinate puppy, this apple tart I made, hunting for salamanders, and finding the grave of my great-great-grandfather in Brooklyn, which I have, for your pleasure, made into a collage. 

Benji Jones

Benji Jones

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