Clean Energy Industry Trends: What Researchers Need to Know Webinar | May 20, 2026 | 12:00 PM MT Registration link will be sent upon signup.

About This Webinar

2025 was a landmark year for clean energy. Record investment, record deployment, and a policy environment that tested the sector's resilience at every turn. This webinar will break down the major industry trends shaping the clean energy landscape right now and what they mean for researchers at the intersection of energy, policy, technology, and economic transition.

Topics will include:

• Record electricity demand growth, driven by data centers and electrification
• Record solar, wind, and battery storage deployment, despite policy rollbacks and permitting bottlenecks slowing further growth
• Corporate clean energy investment
• Policy headwinds: tariffs, IRA rollbacks, and what the industry is doing in response
• The rising economic cost of climate change and the response

This session is designed for CU faculty researchers whose work intersects with energy systems, climate policy, workforce development, technology innovation, or economic transition. Whether you are deep in the clean energy field or exploring how your research connects to it, this webinar will ground your work in current market realities and open a conversation about how university expertise can shape Colorado's energy future.
 

Findings will draw on the 2026 BCSE Sustainable Energy in America Factbook, the ACP Annual Clean Power Market Report, and other leading industry sources.

Registration link will be sent to all who sign up. A recording will be made available following the event.

About the Speaker

Kelly Fleming, PhD Assistant Director for Industry Research Partnerships, University of Colorado Boulder

Kelly Fleming works at the intersection of academic research and industry to build collaborations that advance research and technology development, with a particular focus on advanced energy and sustainability. At CU Boulder, she connects university researchers with industry partners to move the needle on the challenges defining the energy transition.
 

Kelly brings deep expertise in clean energy spanning power grid modernization, low-carbon fuels, and the electrification of transportation — developed across a career that has taken her through academia, industry, government, and the nonprofit sector. She has held roles at the Federation of American Scientists, Boundary Stone Partners, and the Policy Institute at the University of California, Davis. As an AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the U.S. Department of Energy's Vehicle Technologies Office, she experienced firsthand how policy, research, and industry must work in concert to drive the energy transition forward.
 

Kelly holds a PhD and MS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Washington and a BS in Chemical and Biochemical Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines.