This transcript has been generated using machine learning technology. While this technology was trained with CIBC terminology, it may contain errors.

Tom Heintzman: Welcome to The Sustainability Agenda, a podcast series focusing on the evolving complexities of the sustainability landscape. I’m your host, Tom Heintzman. Please join me as we explore today’s most pressing issues with special guests that will give you some new perspectives and help you make sense of what really matters.

Pull Quote (James Wright):I just think that we’ll be reporting on another record build out of new generation capacity in 2026 across renewables and gas with domestic solar particularly being front and center purely on a speed to grid and cost to production basis without frankly the letters ESG even be mentioned.

Tom Heintzman: Welcome to our multi-part series on the role of electrification in the transition to clean energy. Through our series, we highlight the trends and market developments impacting the electrification value chain.

On today’s episode, we’ll discuss the key takeaways from the third annual CIBC electrification summit that was held on April 22nd in Toronto. The summit is our leading energy event in Canada, attracting more than 350 North American leaders in the electricity sector.

Joining me today to provide additional insights on the event are two of my colleagues. Please welcome James Wright. He’s the managing director and head of U.S. corporate banking at CIBC World Markets, based out of Chicago. And Ines Serrao, managing director and co-head of U.S. Project Finance and Infrastructure at CIBC Capital Markets, based out of New York City.

Both James and Ines each moderated speaker panels at the Electrification Summit. James on the US electricity market at a crossroads and Ines on what’s next for North American renewables.

I’d also like to highlight that James and Ines are the co-hosts of their very own CIBC podcast called The Energy Shift. So today represents a very unique crossover episode for followers of both of our channels.

I can’t wait to dive in. Good morning, James and Ines. Welcome to the show.

James Wright: Morning, Tom. Thank you. Great to be on and fun to be on this side of the interview ledger for a change.

Ines Serrao: Thanks, Tom. Great to be here.

Tom Heintzman: So James and Ines as just to start with a recap for our listeners, this was the third annual electrification summit. And the summit covers the entire scope of the electricity transition from generation through distribution, transmission, heavy users behind the meter, the entire gamut.

And I think listeners can think of it as, is at a very high level, at a meta level, as covering the world’s fourth energy transition for, since inception, human beings were using biomass for their energy. Then in the 1700s, early 1800s, moved to coal as the predominant form of energy. Then oil and gas took over in the 1900s. And now we have electrification or electricity taking over.

Unlike many conferences, which are vertical, so they might cover real estate or mining. This topic cuts across virtually all industries as they’re all being affected by the electrification trend. We’ve grown to over 350 attendees and we’re looking forward to a fourth one next year.

So James and Ines, let’s start with your overall impressions of the event. In your opinion, how does this event differentiate itself from other energy events you’ve recently attended?

James Wright: Yeah, thanks, Tom. And I got a couple of thoughts on that. So firstly, maybe an obvious one to kick off on it is very financing focused, right? Being hosted by us, a Bank.

Secondly, I’d add that a great differentiator from my perspective is this is US and Canada, which is really impactful just given how much cross border investment there is in this space, both on the buy side and the sell side. We had a really great cross-base of investors at the event, investors, sponsors, and bankers.

Final thing that springs to mind, Tom would be an, as an unashamed plug would be the physical space we host it in itself, right? The CIBC auditorium and CIBC square is just a fantastic venue to host clients and have really meaningful presentations and one-on-one discussions.

Tom Heintzman: Super helpful, James. Ines, any overall impressions of the event?

Ines Serrao: Thanks, Tom. First, I just wanted to say that was a great summary that you started with. And we typically, when we’re on our day to day, we don’t think about the history of what we’re doing and all this broad spectrum of what we do. So it’s nice to sit back and take that in for a minute.

On the event itself, it was a great event. Like James mentioned, I think it’s uniquely positioned as an event that covers both Canada and the US. And given the ample opportunities across both countries, it was a good way to focus on the tailwinds and headwinds in both geographies and learn from the experience of companies that work on both sides of the border or focusing one of the two countries.

And then I also have a shameless plug. so if we may say so ourselves with CIBC being at the forefront of energy financing and advising in Canada as well as the US, it places us at a great position to host this event, and welcome our clients and relevant stakeholders in both markets.

Tom Heintzman: James, you moderated a panel that explored the US electricity market dynamics in the wake of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act or the OBBBA, I think I got all three Bs, as well as how the forthcoming midterm elections may shape the future of that market.

Can you summarize who is on your panel and what the key takeaways were that you can share with our listeners?

James Wright: Yeah, absolutely. And the panel was lot of fun. I had the pleasure of Meghan Schultz, who’s the CFO of Invenergy, John Clapp, the CEO of Deriva, and Ray Long, who is the CEO of ACORE, which is the American Council on Renewable Energy. So three leaders in the US who know this industry backwards.

I’d say three thematics that came out of that from my perspective. First would be the cost of energy and electricity in particular, which within this framework is undoubtedly going to be a key theme at the midterms.

Secondly, there’s a really strong case to be made that the generational shift in low demand coupled with the instability and volatility we’re seeing in the oil and gas markets is shifting the [overton] window back towards renewables.

And finally, we can’t take our eye off the transmission problem, particularly this side of the border, transmission and permit reform really can’t slip down the legislative priority list if we’re going to unlock the full potential of a 21st century digital electrified economy. And we’ve got a couple of hot takes now from Ray and Megan on their takes at the event.

Interview 1:

Hello everyone. I’m with Ray Long, the CEO of ACORE and Ray’s with us today at the electrification Summit. And hey, Ray, I want to just to get your hot takes on stuff that’s been in your mind from the conference so far.

Thanks for put me on the spot, James. Okay, I was a conference a couple of weeks ago, and we’re talking insurance here. Somebody who’s in the industry and who does work within clean energy mentioned this: “An uninsurable America is an unfinanceable America”. And that stuck with me, you know, and I think the risk inherent insurance today kind of comes in two flavors.

One is around financing. So you think about the FEOC regulations that are out there. And clarifying those rules is critical so that we won’t actually need to have insurance products that are underpinning the financing of projects, and the risk that we’re now experiencing and hearing about through law firms.

The second one is project related. So we’ve got a lot of people who are investing in transmission lines around the country. Wildfire risk is a real thing, and that’s having an impact on financeability for those projects because of the risk in them. And of course, costs go up to have to be able to get insurance.

That’s a great take. Appreciate it.

Anytime.

Interview 2:

Hello. I’m with Meghan Schultz, CFO of Invenergy. Meghan. Have you found the conference so far? What’s your hot takes?

Thanks, James. It’s been great. I think we’ve continued to hear from a number of panelists about the opportunity that exists with low growth for new builds across renewables and across gas generation. And we’ve also heard about the challenges, whether it’s around permitting local opposition or supply chain challenges. So a lot of opportunity but continued challenges.

Tom Heintzman: So James, you mentioned cost, and I’m sure our listeners ears perked up at that. How would you describe the cost forecast for consumers going out over the next five to 10 years? Are we looking at small increases, moderate increases, or substantial increases in your view?

James Wright: It’s a great question, Tom, and the challenge, I’m not ducking the question, is it’s very state by state, specific here, depending on the localized load demand and forecasts and what’s coming on the grid the next five to 10 years.

I’d say the general thematic is a moderate cost increase, I’d say, across the country is what we’re seeing. It’s staggering some of the forecasts of the demand that’s going to

pick up. One thing I noticed on my panel that we talked about briefly was if you take ERCOT as one small example, ERCOT being the Texas grid, they came out of their latest forecasts a week before last and they were saying that, know, whereas we’ve had, I think peak load of around 88, 89 gigawatts, give or take, they could see that getting up to as high as 400 gigawatts by 2032.

Now, if you take that with a pinch of salt and haircut it a bit, it’s still a huge increase of where we’ve been. So that’s undoubtedly going to have an impact on pricing and it’s a big thematic for the midterms ahead.

Ines Serrao: I think the other variable on this point though is what creative solutions are going to be found for the new power that’s going to be required with respect to AI demand, whether that is behind the meter or in front of the meter, and that is going to have a big impact on the price going forward.

Tom Heintzman: Ines, you moderated a panel that examined the outlook for renewables in North America, including the opportunities and challenges over the next two to five years. Can you also summarize who was on your panel and what the key takeaways were? You live and breathe renewables. Did anything strike you as new or surprising?

Ines Serrao: I had the pleasure of having very knowledgeable speakers on my panel, which were Denise Tait, the Chief Investment Officer of Arevon Energy, David Eva, the Chief Executive Officer of Capstone Infrastructure, and Niko Nikolaides, the Chief Financial Officer of Innergex. Each of them brought their valuable perspectives to the conversation.

The majority of what we covered should not come as a surprise to listeners that are familiar with renewables investing in North America. But to summarize, yes, there have been challenges related to uncertainty, including with respect to political changes and tariffs. However, the demand for power, like we were saying, related to AI and electrification, tied with the levelized cost of energy for renewables, as well as speed to market, are creating fundamental support factors for the continued development of renewable projects. And this was very well pointed out by Denise Tait of Arevon when we asked for her hot takes from the conference.

Interview 3:

I’m here with Denise Tait, CIO at Arevon at the CIBC 2026 Electrification Conference. Denise, could you tell me your hot takes for the conference?

Absolutely. Wood Mac did a great presentation this morning. I always love when they come out and they keep talking about increased demand. And they continue to discuss how renewables are competitive on a pricing standpoint and also the speed to build. So I think great prospects for renewables continue into the future.

Great. Thank you Denise.

Ines Serrao: In addition to this, what I’m finding interesting and new in the conversations around renewables and AI are the points related to the impact that the demand for power from AI, including in increasing power prices, like we were just talking about in certain markets. And it’s becoming clear that all relevant stakeholders from AI companies to power developers and local federal policymakers are trying to find creative solutions that will make this transition better for all parties.

From a financing perspective, we’re already seeing some of the solutions come to our desks with behind the meter power, for example. And I’m excited to continue to work on solutions for this problem. When we asked David Eva of Capstone for his hot takes, he gave a very good summary of some of these points.

Interview 4:

Hi, I’m here with David Eva, CEO of Capstone at the CIBC Electrification Conference. And Dave would be great to have your hot takes for the conference.

Great event today and obviously super well represented from the industry right across the power generation. But also so good to see so many of the industrials like the mines and whatnot coming out. Everybody dealing with the issue of electrification. Look as I mentioned and people have said on the panels opportunity set like, you know, more so than I’ve seen in 20 years in this business demand growth across the board, not from data centers, but also, you know, electrification and general industry growth.

And we’re seeing it and it’s creating massive opportunities in the development space. And we’ve certainly heard from others though daunting challenges on execution, be it transmission, be it policy, be it, be it, you know, geopolitics and tariffs, be it supply chains, be social license. And so as an industry, how do we sort of, you know, deliver these electrons and deliver these, these megawatts in a way to feed the sort of insatiable growing need.

But at the end of the day, like we need to deliver against our investment mandates, you know, for our companies and our and our shareholders.

James Wright: So Tom, let me grab the mic and turn it around to you for a second. So the electrification is an interconnected issue across geographies and many of our industries, which you actually highlighted in your closing remarks at the event. So as the architect of our summit, what key themes did you actually observe this year that advanced this interconnectedness, I guess you could say, and did anything stand out to you as being different from last year on those themes?

Tom Heintzman: I think if I had to describe it in one word, and you didn’t ask for that, but I’ll try nonetheless, it would be maturation. And I saw that in a bunch of different respects. So first of all, on demand, we’ve been talking about the load growth coming from data centers for some time, several years now. But I would say this year it really showed up.

An analogy might be contrasting AI 12 months ago in AI now, obviously it’s much more sophisticated. There’s a similar realization of the data center opportunity. And just to give you a couple data points, so one speaker was talking about a half a trillion of CapEx being invested into data centers annually, which is staggering. And another, Wood Mac, I believe it was, talked about the load, and the load is a term that…Some of our users will be familiar with, but others might not, but it’s essentially the draw, the demand for electricity. The load estimated from data centers that are in late stage. So they’re either in construction or they’re, they’re fully permitted. It represents 25 % of the total peak load in the United States. So just staggering amounts. So in my mind, this was the year that, that load and in particular data centers really showed up.

Second of all, in supply. Again, this year there was a dramatic growth in renewables, but also I would say storage is one that really took off and a number of speakers pointed to that so much so that storage is even in fact starting to cannibalize itself. Meaning when you get too much storage at the same time, the value of each incremental unit goes down. So the margins for storage are dropping dramatically and that’s going to drive probably a number of behaviors. You’ll have to get storage moving off sync with the other storage and maybe even long duration storage in order to preserve the value.

And then lastly, I think we saw maturation in projects as well. On one hand, we have projects that are directly related to electricity. And there I’d give as an example, the BC Yukon interconnect, which will connect Yukon in order to open up mining projects, but also allow population growth in the Yukon and that will connect into the BC grid. Here’s a hot take from the Honourable Ted Laking. So we’re very privileged to have the Minister of Energy from the Yukon come and speak at the conference. And here’s his hot take on the interconnection.

Interview 5:

Hi. So I’m here with Minister Laking at the CIBC conference 2026. Minister would be great to have your hot takes for the conference, please.

Yeah. You know, one of the things that really stood out to me was how interesting it is when you take a look across the mining sector right now, all of the different innovations that are being brought to bear. You know, we heard from Newmont some really exciting initiatives that they’re doing when it comes to electrifying their heavy duty equipment.

We heard from [Canada] Nickel some interesting things that they’re doing just in terms of carbon capture. And so one of the things that stood out to me is just how much on the bleeding edge the mining industry is when it comes to being environmentally friendly and thinking about environmental sustainability.

Great. Thank you.

Tom Heintzman: And then a second maturation are national projects that might not look like energy projects, but actually really rely upon energy. So one good example of that is the Crawford mine. It’s a green nickel mine being built in Timmins, but it will be largely electrified, both the operations of the mine itself and the smelting and refining operations. And it’s made possible by, amongst other things, a new transmission line connecting Wawa to Timmins or to the to Porcupine area.

These projects also require extensive First Nations involvement and partnerships. And here’s the Honorable Greg Rickford. So yet another minister who came to speak. Minister Rickford is the Ontario Minister of Indigenous Affairs and First Nations economic reconciliation and minister responsible for Ring of Fire Economic and Community Partnerships. It’s interesting there that his title is both Ring of Fire and First Nations, which shows or emphasizes the importance of First Nations to these major projects. Anyway, here’s Honorable Greg Rickford’s hot take.

Interview 6:

I’m here with Minister Rickford at the electrification summit. Minister, it’s great to have you here. What were your hot takes from the summit?

I think it’s stressing the importance of community and economic partnerships for the purposes of the government. Sharing, explaining and celebrating the Indigenous Opportunities Fund here in Ontario that can provide access to capital for First Nations to become meaningful equity partners in major electrification projects, which are foundation to some of the goals of developing some of our biggest and best critical mineral mines, not just in Ontario, but the world over.

Tom Heintzman: So James and Ines, a final question for both of you. Drawing on your firsthand experience supporting clients in financing energy projects, what key trends or changes do you anticipate in North American electricity markets over the next 12 months? If you can project ahead a little, what developments do you think could be top of mind for clients at next year’s electrification summit? So what’s the agenda going to look like?

James Wright: That’s great closer, Tom. And I kind of gave up on my crystal ball years ago. It constantly seems to malfunction, but I’ll give it a stab. Firstly, I do think we’ll have seen some sort of transmission and permitting reform having happened here in the U S. This is the segment of the podcast where it’s wish it and it may happen type of thing. Here’s hoping on the transmission side, but I think there’s a good chance something will get done.

Secondly, I think we’re actually going to see a renewed buzz around EVs and what a more electrified transportation system could look like. Obviously that went a little soft the last couple of years, but I think we’re going to turn a corner there as my personal view, particularly with some of the amazing technology advancements we’re seeing in that space at the moment.

And then, thirdly and finally, I just think that we’ll be reporting on another record build out of new generation capacity in 2026 across renewables and gas with domestic solar particularly being front and center purely on a speed to grid and cost to production basis without frankly the letters ESG even be mentioned.

Tom Heintzman: Fascinating. And James, I have to throw in a plug here. I used to develop solar in Pakistan. And I don’t know whether you’re aware, but Pakistan’s becoming one of the leading residential deployers of solar. Now it’s equivalent to a refrigerator and an air conditioner. Every home has to have one.

Ines, over to you, what are your predictions for the next 12 months? What do you think will be hearing about and talking about in 12 months’ time.

Ines Serrao: I agree with James that I’m not particularly good at making predictions. That’s why I’m a banker. But I agree with the predictions. And the only thing I would perhaps add is that we will continue to talk a lot about how can we quickly bring more electrons to market to satisfy growing power demand.

To that point, I don’t know if you heard on our podcast on the other side of the wall that James’ is manufacturing his very own “I love Powered Land” t-shirts so we could all get one those for next year’s conference. And then just obviously geopolitical uncertainty will, in my view, add more reasons to continue with this goal. But I am looking forward to next year’s electrification conference.

James Wright: The T-shirts are coming.

Tom Heintzman: It’s hard to imagine that next year we’ll have more uncertainty than this one did geopolitically, but let’s hope for a little stability. Anyway, thank you, James and Ines for taking the time to join the show today. It’s not often we do a crossover here with other CIBC podcast hosts. It was special to have you on today and thanks to the listeners for tuning in.

Ines Serrao: Thank you, Tom.

James Wright: Thanks, Tom.

Tom Heintzman: Please join us next time as we tackle some of sustainability’s biggest questions, providing you different perspectives to help you move forward. I’m your host, Tom Heintzman, and this is The Sustainability Agenda.

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Key takeaways from the 3rd annual CIBC Electrification Summit

Tom Heintzman

MD & Vice-Chair, Energy Transition & Sustainability

CIBC Capital Markets

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