The Digital Bottleneck in Infrastructure Delivery

Global investment in renewable energy infrastructure surged in 2025, reaching just shy of half a trillion dollars. This capital injection is roughly equivalent to the entire GDP of modern economies such as Denmark or Singapore.

According to new research from infrastructure procurement platform Ansarada, investment in renewables climbed 49% from 2024 to hit US$496.7bn worldwide.

Ansarada’s data breakdown offers specific insights into where this money is going. Europe is currently leading the charge, commanding US$202.7bn across 1,035 transactions. This represents an 82% increase in value compared to the previous year.

Of the various energy sources, offshore wind was the standout performer. The study indicates that the value of offshore wind investments surged 290% to US$89.8bn. This growth was headlined by the financial close of the 1.4GW East Anglia Three project off the UK's east coast, which secured a £3.6bn (US$4.8bn) debt package backed by 24 international lenders.

While the market appears to be in rude health with a rosy outlook toward 2050, Ansarada has identified troubling cracks beneath the surface.

The execution problem

Despite the skyrocketing value of investments, the study found that the actual volume of transactions rose just 7% globally and only 4% in Europe. This gap suggests that capital is concentrating into fewer, larger and more complex projects. These initiatives demand rigorous, auditable procurement processes to get off the ground.

To understand the industry experience better, Ansarada interviewed 150 executives regarding their perception of procurement in the energy sector. The statistics are telling: just 37% of those surveyed across EMEA and the Americas described their most recent renewables procurement process as "very efficient". In Asia-Pacific, that figure drops to 24%.

Justin Smith, MD at Ansarada, is direct about the implications.

"Europe has established itself as the global benchmark for renewable energy infrastructure, with regulatory frameworks and supply chains that attract institutional capital at scale," he says.

"But there's a critical disconnect between the ambition reflected in investment figures and the procurement processes actually delivering projects. Capital is abundant, but execution capability is the binding constraint."

A transparency deficit

The issue is not solely one of efficiency. The report found that around 90% of EMEA respondents described transparency and auditability as "very important" or "essential" to their procurement processes. However, nearly a third admitted those same processes lacked clarity for internal stakeholders.

This is a difficult state of affairs to navigate, particularly as sustainability mandates and ESG regulations become more stringent across the EU.

“The transparency gap isn't just an operational inefficiency; it's a commercial risk,” says Justin.

“Institutional investors and project financiers increasingly demand auditable evidence that ESG criteria are genuinely embedded in procurement.

“Organisations that can't demonstrate that risk losing access to the capital that large-scale renewable projects need.”

The Frankenstack problem

Why are procurement processes falling short? Part of the answer lies in what Ansarada calls “fragmentation”—unjoined thinking that leads to data siloing, slow tender processes and communication hiccups.

While 91% of respondents claimed to use purpose-built procurement software, EMEA organisations were found to be running an average of 3.8 disconnected systems simultaneously. Furthermore, 55% of respondents say they still rely on email to manage correspondence for sensitive bidding.

Andy Potter, Business Development Director in EMEA at Ansarada, believes these approaches could be vastly improved.

“If you're still using fragmented systems or traditional cloud storage, you lose that 'golden thread' of accountability that modern regulators and investors now demand,” he says.

Meanwhile, Justin describes the result as a "Frankenstack" – a patchwork of incompatible tools that creates the illusion of digitalisation without delivering its substance.

The road ahead

It is clear that procurement issues in renewable energy must be resolved to meet skyrocketing demand. Analysis from Bain & Co. cited in the report suggests global compute requirements alone could reach 200GW by 2030, driven by AI infrastructure. This makes reliable green energy an industrial necessity rather than a nice-to-have climate ambition.

The conflict in the Middle East and its negative impacts on the global hydrocarbons market emphasise this further.

Speaking about the war’s impact on the UK’s energy landscape, Christophe Williams, CEO of Naked Energy, says: “Tackling heat with British and European made clean technologies is one of the fastest ways to lower exposure to gas prices while strengthening energy security.”

However, ambition and delivery remain two different things.

As Justin puts it: “The question for Europe is whether procurement processes can match the scale of ambition reflected in investment figures.

“Capital is flowing toward large-scale and integrated projects, but delivery depends on treating procurement as critical project infrastructure from day one, not an administrative afterthought.”