Picture the scene, you’re leading a company which needs massive amounts of power to make the products it sells. And when we say a lot, we’re talking country-sized, putting you ahead of utilities companies and even big tech. All over the world, your facilities need a constant source of electricity pretty much 24/7 to suck in, compress and distill atmospheric gases for steel, semiconductors, food, hospitals and everything in between.
A pretty important role, meaning accessing the cheapest and most secure energy sources has got to be number one priority in case a (another) global fossil fuel crisis launches energy prices onto a rollercoaster ride, right? And you have a really strong and clear plan for how to do this to reassure your customers and investors, right? Right…?
Well, if you’re Linde, the company we first started looking into last year with our Hidden Giants report, the answer may not be so straightforward. When we first investigated the industrial gases sector, highlighting its large emissions, energy intensiveness, and behind-the-curve renewable energy procurement, we took a high-level view of the companies in question (Linde, Air Liquide and Air Products). Our research found that Linde has one of the largest scope 2 emissions footprints (bigger than BP or Shell), and is 2024’s largest electricity consumer, according to the Carbon Disclosure Project. Yet just a fraction of that is procured from active renewable energy, the rest coming from fossil fuels and grid electricity.
For our latest investigation, we went deeper. By conducting a 6 month long deep dive into Linde’s most power-hungry assets – their air separation units – in five key markets, we sought to understand whether Linde was pursuing or ignoring renewable energy procurement opportunities. Our latest investigation finds that while the company is spending one third of OPEX on energy costs, it has chronically underinvested in cheap, abundant renewable energy in key regions where our assessment finds there are a variety of procurement options available. We have laid out our recommendations in this report for renewable energy procurement in key markets: South Korea, the US, India, Ireland and Germany.
While our initial work raised questions from investors and the media about Linde’s approach to the energy transition – and contributed to a shareholder resolution being filed by Northstar Asset Management which is up for a vote at July’s AGM – this investigation seeks to understand where this sluggish approach to energy security might be costing the company in competitiveness and insulation from risk in key growth regions. With key competitor Air Liquide sourcing 24.8% renewable energy to Linde’s 17.7% in 2025, and adding an additional 3 Twh of PPAs a year from 2025, competition is tight and access to secure energy is vital, especially for industrial gas giants who depend on continuous access to power.
For example, as AI-driven electricity demand strains global grids, recent outages affecting Linde assets at TSMC’s Phoenix facility reportedly led to the loss of thousands of semiconductor wafers. While the precise cause of the outage is unclear, the incident underscores how instability in power supply can disrupt chip production – a material risk to Linde’s business.
Despite this risk, our research finds that Linde – which supplies industrial gases to TSMC, whose customers include Apple and NVIDIA – reported zero active renewable electricity purchases in the US in 2024, according to its 2025 CDP report. This lack of active clean power in the US poses operational risks to chipmakers as AI demand strains grids, where investments in renewable energy could provide critical power supply security to ensure a continuous flow of gases to chip factories.
Linde’s record thus far has hardly been a model of resilience against fossil fuel price volatility. Then, the Strait of Hormuz crisis hit, the second major fossil fuel crisis in five years, following the ongoing disruption caused by the war in Ukraine.
What we have seen over the past few months has dramatically underscored the fundamental security risk embedded in fossil fuel reliance and why having a credible strategy is crucial. Since the start of the conflict, global electricity prices have lurched upward in lockstep with gas markets, with Asia particularly hard hit. Meanwhile, global investment in clean energy is expected to reach $2.2 trillion in 2026, nearly double the $1.2 trillion going into oil, gas and coal, as governments and corporations alike accelerate the shift to sources whose price doesn’t move when a strait closes.
As we have laid out before, Linde can be an ambitious and active enabler of this transition, securing reliable, affordable energy for its clients and hedging itself against price volatility risk, or it can continue to ride the fossil fuel rollercoaster, keep passing through the costs to customers, and cross its fingers for the future. The AI energy boom means Linde is no longer first in line when it comes to energy demand – investors are asking for a credible plan for renewable energy procurement from Linde to ensure they remain competitive now into the future.
Beyond protecting its own competitiveness, Linde’s country-sized buying power could meaningfully help accelerate global grid decarbonization. With operations spanning regions where renewable energy and power-purchase agreements are abundant and increasingly cost-competitive, the question is no longer whether Linde can lead but whether it will.
